The Finnish Border Guard is concerned about a possible environmental disaster due to outdated tankers with Russian oil plying the Baltic Sea.
This was reported by Deutsche Welle.
Head of the Maritime Security Department of the Finnish Border Guard Service Mikko Simola warns that the threat of a large-scale oil spill is growing in the Baltic Sea due to the fact that Russia has deployed a fleet of hundreds of "ghost tankers" to sell oil bypassing sanctions.
According to him, 70 old-style vessels with 100 thousand tons of crude oil pass through the Gulf of Finland every week after being loaded in various Russian ports. Mr. Simola added that the number of such tanker voyages has even increased since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to experts, outdated vessels without a clear affiliation to a particular state and insurance allow Russia to export oil in significant volumes despite the sanctions.
According to the Finnish border service, the tankers sail under the flags of Cameroon, Gabon, Djibouti, Palau or Belize. The border guards note that such ships have not been observed before and these countries obviously have no experience of navigating in the icy conditions of the northern regions. This only increases the risk of an "oil plague" – a serious environmental disaster that occurs as a result of an oil spill.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, 26,000 barrels of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, USA, equivalent to the capacity of two Olympic-sized swimming pools.
