US weighing sanctions on Russia’s ‘shadow tanker fleet’
The US is weighing sanctions on what it calls a “shadow fleet” of Russian oil tankers that it says have been helping Moscow bypass Washington’s economic bans, while fearing that the move could spike gasoline prices at the cost of President Joe Biden’s election chances.
The New York Times reported the potential imposition of the sanctions on Sunday.
The US has already stopped importing Russian oil as a means of trying to deprive the country of revenues that could be used towards funding Moscow’s 2022-present military operation in Ukraine.
Later, it moved to enforce a price cap of $60 per barrel to ramp up pressure on Russia.
However, Washington alleges that Moscow has been using the allegedly aging fleet that operates without Western insurance to deliver oil to buyers around the world at a higher price.
“Russia has largely circumvented the cap [by using the fleet], allowing it to reap huge profits,” The Times claimed.
“The fleet of tankers along with alternative forms of maritime insurance have allowed the Kremlin to continue generating robust revenues from oil exports,” the paper alleged.
“The White House is under pressure from inside and outside the administration to do more to enforce the oil price cap,” it added.
Economic advisors inside the White House worry, though, that sanctioning the Russian fleet would risk inflaming oil prices this summer and push up US gasoline prices, “which could hurt Biden’s re-election campaign.”
‘Unlikely to hurt Russia’
US Department of Treasury officials have, meanwhile, also warned that even potential sanctions against the fleet would be “unlikely to knock Russian oil off the market,” the paper wrote.
It “would instead force Moscow back to selling much of its oil for lower prices under the cap,” it added.
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