How tanker dark fleet is moving in high seas hunt for sanctioned oil

President Donald Trump announced a U.S. trade deal with India on Monday which he said includes a promise from India to stop buying Russian oil and potentially buy from the U.S. and Venezuela, but data shows the shadow fleet of tankers moving sanctioned crude continues to unload at Indian ports.

Global data and analytics firm Kpler’s vessel tracking shared with CNBC shows four tankers associated with Russia’s shadow fleet unloading or in the process of unloading sanctioned oil at Indian ports: the Giannis, unloading Urals at Chennai Refinery; the Nyxora, unloading Urals at Paradip Refinery; the Tiburon, unloading Urals at Vadinar Refinery; and the Seasons I, which is being tracked outside Vadinar on Tuesday morning but was yet to unload, according to Kpler.

In recent months, the global shadow fleet moving sanctioned oil, estimated to be as large as 1,400 vessels, has navigated around the tightening U.S. enforcement campaign on Venezuela and Iranian oil, and Europe’s interventions against the increasing flow of stateless tankers loading Russian crude.

A recent Lloyd’s List analysis on the global shadow fleet after the U.S. military actions in Venezuela found that out of the approximately 50 tankers that were full of Venezuelan oil, at least five tankers completed deliveries to China with the vessel’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) operating normally, and suggesting “the enforcement pressure has yet to bite.”

The U.S. recently completed its first sales of Venezuelan oil in the legal crude market.

Sanctioned Russian crude has also faced increasing enforcement measures. Recently, the French seized the tanker Grinch, which departed Murmansk earlier this month with a cargo of Russian oil. The French, with British assistance in tracking and monitoring, boarded the vessel to conduct a flag verification. The flag of the Comoros Islands has been deemed false. This seizure was the first instance of the EU-UK plan to interdict Russia’s shadow fleet. The sanctioning and seizure of the Russian shadow fleet is one of the efforts to cut Russian energy revenue to reduce Moscow’s ability to pursue its war in Ukraine.

India’s imports of Russian oil have reached a record level this year.

“In 2025, India’s oil imports from Russia made up 33% of the country’s total seaborne oil imports and 25 percent of Russia’s seaborne oil exports,” said Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at Bimco. “A new trade agreement between the U.S. and India could, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, put an end to that trade,” he said.

But Kremlin officials have pushed back, telling reporters they have not officially heard from India about any suspension of oil purchases by the Indian government.

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra…