Gabon and Barbados refused to fly their flags to Sovcomflot vessels

Two countries — Gabon and Barbados — have refused to register their flags with Sovcomflot, Russia’s largest shipping company.

The The Moscow Times reports.

For more than 20 years, Sovcomflot’s ships had flown under the flag of Liberia. But after the company was hit by sanctions, it had to look for new jurisdictions.

Initially, the company chose Gabon. The country had granted its flag to ships carrying Russian oil in circumvention of sanctions. However, after diplomatic pressure, Gabon removed its flags from Sovcomflot’s tankers, and they had to be re-registered in Barbados.

But the ships did not last long there either: due to sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom, whose registers Barbados uses, the country’s authorities cancelled the registration of Sovcomflot’s tankers, and the company had to look for a fourth flag.

Three of its tankers — Mirabel, Primavera, Carma — received a home port in Oman in 2025. The change of flag to Oman coincided with a visit to Russia on April 22 by Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said. Tankers are rarely registered in Oman. Equasis data shows that of the 129 vessels flying its flag, only three are tankers, and they all belong to Sovcomflot. In addition to Oman, Russian vessels received new flags in the Comoros Islands, Sao Tome and Principe, and Sierra Leone.

Sovcomflot was included in the sanctions lists of the United States, the European Union, and Britain in 2022, and last year dozens of its tankers were sanctioned for transporting oil bypassing Western restrictions.

In January, the Joe Biden administration’s “farewell” measures affected 69 Sovcomflot vessels, including 54 oil and oil product tankers and four gas carriers. And in February, European sanctions hit a Sovcomflot subsidiary (SKF Arktika LLC) and 74 tankers linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet.” Earlier, USM reported that more than 100 Russian tankers will lose their Panamanian and Barbados flags.