Oman is facing an impending environmental catastrophe as an alleged Russian shadow fleet tanker leaks oil across hundreds of square kilometres near a nature reserve, NGOs warn.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/64645010

Dubai (AFP) – Oman is facing an impending environmental catastrophe as an alleged Russian shadow fleet tanker leaks oil across hundreds of square kilometres near a nature reserve, NGOs warn.

The ship was rocked by explosions, a maritime security firm told AFP, but the cause of the blasts is unclear.

Russia has built up a ghost fleet of old ships with opaque ownership to get around Western sanctions since its 2022 Ukraine invasion, and experts have said the vessels’ poor condition increases the risk of oil spills.

Satellite imagery verified by AFP showed what appeared to be an oil slick spreading from a ship that has been stranded for over a month near al-Qibliyyah island, off Oman’s southern coast.

It is far from the Strait of Hormuz, which has seen regular tanker attacks in the Middle East war.

“With oil apparently continuing to leak and the vessel stranded in a difficult location, the risk of an even larger environmental disaster remains serious,” Nina Noelle of Greenpeace told AFP.

She warned of a “severe and long-lasting” consequence.

Greenpeace said the oil sheen had expanded from up to 20 square kilometres on July 24 to an estimated 600 on August 4, according to satellite imagery it reviewed.

Environmental open-source investigator Wim Zwijnenburg, from Dutch peace organisation PAX, gave the same estimate for the August 4 sheen.

Kpler data showed that the Caroline Bezengi, which is believed to be the ship leaking off Oman, loaded one million barrels of crude oil at the Russian Black Sea terminal of Sheskharis on May 11.

It still had the oil when its last signal was recorded a month later.

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  • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
    3·
    25 days ago

    They really gotta stop calling it a “shadow fleet”. It’s a rediculously cheesy thing to call ships that skirt sanctions. I can’t take it seriously

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyzOP
      2·
      25 days ago

      Absolutely.

      A true shadow fleet would be a fleet of unmanned underwater cargo drones that can move around industrially significant amounts of cargo unnoticed by the broader global community.

      I am sure some of that kind of thing is being demonstrated in a top secret fashion through the straight of hormuz and elsewhere in the world at political flashpoints (like narrow sea channels in East Asia in the Pacific for example or the red sea, or the strait of gibraltar).

      I mean, as bullshit as the murdering and fear mongering around narcoterrorists is in the Caribbean, the unmanned cargo and surveillance vessels the navy and marines have settled on for long distance dispersed re-supply are essentially rip-offs of what has been termed in slang “narco-subs” used for organized crime which are not subs at all really but rather small vessels that sit low in the water and are not swampable from rough seas crashing over the side of the boat (since they are essentially submarines that can’t dive).

      This is NOT what we are talking about with the russian “Shadow Fleet” however.

      The reason russia pushes the name “Shadow Fleet” for the high mileage dumpsterfire they call a “Fleet” is to try to sell the idea that anything about their fleet is “Shadowy” other than the bullshit papertrails they use to justify the legality of where they send their piece of shit, civilian hull, completely visible, massive radar and acoustic signature, observable from space with essentially the naked eye Sitting Ducks that have only NOT been interdicted up until now because of international law and hesitancy of international powers that could stomp russia in the maritime realm into a tiny little dense cube of shit that could fit on the tip of a sharpened pencil.