A big shipment of Russian oil to China took a lot longer to arrive than it used to. Normally, it would take about a week to deliver oil, but because of new US sanctions against Russia, this delivery took over seven weeks!
The oil, called Sokol crude, came from a Russian project in Sakhalin. It was transported by a huge ship named the Daban, which had to get its oil from smaller ships in a safe bay called Nakhodka Bay, off Russia’s coast. This transfer took around ten days to complete.
After picking up the oil, the Daban couldn’t dock at two other ports in China before finally arriving at Huangdao. This shows that while oil deliveries from Russia are still happening, sanctions are causing delays.
The Biden administration’s sanctions on Russia are stronger than past ones. Some shipments of Russian oil are still getting through, but they are facing problems. For example, another ship in the Baltic Sea has been waiting over a month to unload its cargo, which is very unusual.
The Daban spent ten days waiting near Yantai before moving to another port, Rizhao, where it waited another ten days before finally reaching Huangdao. The oil was delivered using three shuttle tankers that the US sanctioned earlier this year.
Interestingly, the Daban has carried oil from Iran before but is not currently under sanctions.
