Oil Spill Fears Mount as Russia Tankers Reject Key Danish Pilots

(Bloomberg) —

Tankers hauling Russian crude through Denmark’s perilous shipping straits are increasingly rejecting the services of pilots when they do so, raising the chances of an oil spill off the country’s coast.

In the three months through July, 20% of all so-called shadow-fleet tankers moving Russian oil through the Danish straits declined the help of the experts who know the local waters, according to a data compiled by Bloomberg and Danwatch, a Copenhagen-based investigative journalism nonprofit. That proportion has increased from 4% a year earlier.

Crisscrossed every day by ferries and other maritime traffic, the straits can be hard to navigate. Sandbanks abound and there are strong currents and varied water depths. The use of pilots is recommended by the International Maritime Organization and has been commonplace for decades, helping to avoid any kind of major spill in all that time.

But Moscow, denied ready access to the world’s mainstream tankers by western sanctions, is increasingly relying on a fleet of ships that are older, poorly maintained, and have undeclared owners and questionable insurance. Those vessels, which now represent by far the biggest chunk of Russian oil transportation, are the main ones refusing pilotage.

Since the start of 2023, nearly 1,200 tankers carrying Russian crude have left the Baltic Sea and the share of shadow fleet vessels in that count has been increasing over that time. In the three months to the end of July, six out of every 10 shipments were carried on shadow fleet tankers. That’s up from about a four in ten in the first quarter of 2023.

One in every five of those ships rejected the services of Danish pilots from May through July. That’s up from about one in every 20 a year ago, according to data obtained under a Freedom of Information request by Danwatch.

The increase is just another example of how powerless are Denmark — and the European Union more widely — when it comes to addressing a widely acknowledged environmental threat.

The Danish Maritime Authority didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The straits are subject to a freedom-of-navigation treaty dating back to 1857, which gave all ships the right to transit and made the employment of pilots voluntary. Both the UN Maritime Organization, the IMO, and Danish authorities recommend their use.

Were Copenhagen to try and make pilots mandatory, it could risk antagonizing the Kremlin and disrupting a key source of global oil supply.

Bloomberg combined information obtained by Danwatch about pilot rejection with the tracking of hundreds of tankers and other data to understand the impact of western sanctions that ramped up on Moscow following its invasion of Ukraine.

It’s not clear why pilotage is increasingly being turned down. A single trip costs almost 70,000 Danish kroner (about $10,000). The pilots have been critical of the state of the vessels they’ve been asked to guide through.

In March, Danwatch reported that a large number of ships sailing without pilots have done so dangerously, cannot be contacted, or do not communicate clearly. It cited almost 100 internal reports from the Danish Navy Command.

The growing risks the vessels pose was highlighted by a series of interviews conducted by Bloomberg with pilots earlier this month. Mikael Pedersen, who’s helped vessels navigate Denmark’s waters for 22 years, described the shadow-fleet tankers as “old piles of junk.” Crews struggle with outdated maps and equipment so old that it is hard to operate. 

The route from the Baltic to the North Sea twists and turns through Denmark’s Great Belt waterway. 

Tankers laden with Russian crude typically sit between 14 meters and 15 meters deep in the water, vessel tracking data show. Off the island of Agersø, about halfway through the passage, ships have to make two 40 degree turns in quick succession to avoid the shallow waters off the northern tip of the island of Langeland. 

At that point the navigable channel for those vessels is less than one mile wide, according to navigation charts seen by Bloomberg. That leaves very little room for error. 

The lack of local knowledge, combined with old ships and ill prepared crews, increases the risk of an accident that could have a devastating effect on the marine ecosystem and coastline of this fragile waterway.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.