Oil from russian federation enters Asia through Spain

Oil from russian federation is delivered to Asia in transit through the Spanish region of Ceuta (the northern coast of Africa), which makes it possible to reduce the cost of delivery, bypass sanctions and simplify logistics.

Since the beginning of the war against Ukraine, russia began to increasingly use the Spanish city of Ceuta as a base for loading oil from ship to ship. As reported by enkorr with reference to Bloomberg, russia has to sell its oil at a discount, but it still ships it in large quantities.

The route goes like this: russia loads crude oil into Aframax tankers at its export terminals in the Baltic Sea, such as Primorsk and Ust-Luga. These vessels divert crude oil to Ceuta. Next to the Spanish city, “aframaxes”, carrying about 700 thousand barrels, are waiting for the arrival of a large carrier of crude oil, a supertanker of the VLCC type.

Aframaxes approach the VLCC and transfer fuel from side to side. Typically, up to three such operations are required to load one VLCC, which can transport at least 2 million barrels. After that, the big tanker starts its way towards Asia, bypassing Africa.

Bloomberg notes that since December, six VLCCs have carried out such an operation with more than 15 Aframaxes. According to the agency, two more VLCCs are currently waiting for tankers to be unloaded.

The tankers mostly stay 12 nautical miles off the coast, without violating the border, although they sometimes approach Ceuta and Spanish territorial waters. Most of the tankers are owned by russians and Chinese.