Summary
A shadow fleet of old and poorly maintained ships is cruising the high seas, often hiding their true identities through a series of shell companies.
Their numbers have grown massively since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Lloyd’s List estimates as many as 12% of tankers are part of the dark fleet.
There’s increasing concern about the danger to the environment, and to ship’s crews. But how effective at tackling the problem is the regulator, the International Maritime Organisation?
Presenter: Lesley Curwen Producer: Clare Williamson
(Image: Sea and ship at sunset. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Leslie Kerwin. |
| 0:06.0 | Today we look at the growing underclass of rogue ships that are breaking international sanctions. |
| 0:12.0 | These are old ships that are not being inspected, that are deliberately trying to do dangerous things in order to get round sanctions. |
| 0:18.0 | What does this oil trade mean for the funding of Russia's war effort? |
| 0:23.1 | Almost half of this year, Russia was getting approximately $18 billion a month from oil. |
| 0:30.1 | Who can stop this trade? Can Navy ships intervene? |
| 0:33.6 | It has to be under very, very special circumstances. |
| 0:38.8 | You have these international rules that if it's innocent passage, just passing through Danish waters, |
| 0:47.3 | they have the same status basically as if they were on open sea. |
| 0:52.4 | That's all coming up in Business Daily. |
| 1:00.4 | The sound of the lutein bell at Lloyd's of London, the global insurance market. |
| 1:06.4 | It used to be rung to mark the wrecking of a ship or big losses at sea. |
| 1:10.7 | It's now heard only on |
| 1:12.0 | ceremonial occasions. But I'm here today at Lloyd's, where insurance cover is arranged for |
| 1:18.3 | commercial ships, which move most of the world's exports from A to B. But not all ships are |
| 1:24.7 | protected. A shadowy fleet of older vessels has grown in the last few years, |
| 1:30.2 | ships that obscure their identities to evade the law, |
| 1:33.7 | and often international sanctions on countries like Russia and Iran. |
| 1:39.7 | Richard Mead is editor-in-chief of the Shipping Industry Bible Lloyd's List. |
| 1:44.8 | These are ships that are generally old. They have questionable ownership, certainly opaque ownership. |
| 1:52.2 | We're not entirely clear who runs them because they are generally owned by a series of shell companies within shell companies. |
| 1:57.8 | And the whole issue has been created because these are ships |
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