Russian state-owned Sovcomflot has renamed some of its oil tankers following US sanctions.
Bloomberg writes about it.
"Sovcomflot" came under US sanctions in February of this year. The sanctions list also included 14 tankers of the company.
Now the ships were renamed, some were named after Russian cities, and also changed their flags from Gabonese to Russian. Bloomberg writes that this will give Russia more confidence in how it can use them.
"Although the renaming may seem audacious, it will nevertheless make these vessels — and their associations with Russia — more overt," the journalists believe.
According to Bloomberg, at least four tankers changed their names and went under the Russian flag: NS Columbus became Kemerovo (IMO number 9312884), NS Bravo became Belgorod (9412359), NS Captain became Kaliningrad (9341067), and NS Creation became Krasnoyarsk.
In addition to building a shadow fleet to transport its oil while under Western sanctions, Russia relies heavily on the giant Sovcomflot tanker fleet. The company remains the worldʼs largest owner of Aframax-class tankers, each of which is capable of transporting about 700 000 barrels of oil.
Tankers often change names after being sanctioned to distance themselves from listings in sanctions databases, although they can be identified by unique and unchanging numbers registered with the International Maritime Organization.