Thread by @Michellewb_

today's shipping story 🧵🧵This is Simoon, a 19-year-old suezmax that changed hands in December & now sailing for Ust Luga to pick up 1st post-sale sanctioned Russian cargo. The ex-Nordic Rio was formerly owned/operated by Sweden's Stena Bulk, who can no longer trade it in Russia

ISM manager since mid-Dec is Singapore's Suntech Ship Management Private Limited, which has 39 ships in its fleet including Simoon suntech-maritime.com/ourfleet.html. it's not often you see this transparency in "dark fleet", so I checked out whether or not P&I Club with IG is still valid.

The tanker has been with Gard since 2017 but still showing under old name & flag so inconclusive. will watch in coming days to see whether crude cargo is lifted from Ust Luga as signalled and coverage remains.

the beneficial owner, of course, is impossible to know. The registered owner is a single-ship company in Marshall Islands, Navis Marine Corporation, incorporated in December. But interestingly, this is a quality shipmanager, with vessels managed by Navig8 & Hafnia. 🕵️‍♀️

FFIW there are two other (Greek-owned) elderly suezmaxes managed by Suntech, Zeno (IMO 9247429) and Onisilos (IMO 9286281) both owned by Transmed (Charlambos Mylanos & family). these are not involved in Russian trades (obvs)

but Simoon (should it load a non-oil price compliant cargo) presents an interesting dilemma. this vessel defies "dark fleet" characterisation, even though its ownership is obscured, as it is operating via a well-established Singapore company, which includes EU-owned tankers

and it puts this story from Politico into perspective. (I'm assuming this refers to exit of Sovcomflot's fleet from Cyprus shipmanagement to newly incorporated Dubai company called Sunne (something). my internet is too slow to call it up.

There's a host of newly incorporated managers there for newly sold, elderly tankers that happen to now be solely deployed on Russian trades, proving there's always a workaround, or a regulatory gap/crevice to exploit to get ship done. Sanctions are doing little to stop this.