The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions on 69 ships belonging to Sovcomflot on Friday, which includes 54 tankers for transporting oil and petroleum products, as well as four tankers for transporting liquefied natural gas, according to a press release from OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control, the division of the U.S. Treasury responsible for sanction enforcement), as reported by Interfax-Kazakhstan.
The U.S. has also expanded the grounds for imposing sanctions on Sovcomflot to include activities in the energy sector of the Russian economy. Sanctions against Sovcomflot were initially introduced in February 2022, placing the company on the Non-SDN Menu-Based Sanctions List, which prohibits the company from raising debt and equity financing from American investors. In February 2024, the U.S. tightened sanctions, moving Sovcomflot to the "blacklist" (SDN List). The company is also subject to sanctions from the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The list of sanctioned ships from Sovcomflot includes LNG tankers Christophe De Margerie, Pskov, Velikiy Novgorod, and Vostochny Prospect. Among the oil tankers that are subject to sanctions are Bolero, Callisto, Captain Kostichev, Kirill Lavrov, Leo, Liberty, Mikhail Ulyanov, Moskovsky Prospect, Nikolay Zadornov, Okeansky Prospect, Pathfinder, Pavel Chernysh, Rigel, Shturman Albanov, Shturman Malygin, Shturman Ovtsyn, Sirius, Timofey Guzhenko, Vasily Dinkov, Viktor Titov, Zaliv Amerika, Zaliv Amurskiy, Zaliv Aniva, Zaliv Vostok, and Zenith.
The sanctions list also includes product tankers and chemical carriers Alexander Beggrov, Alexey Bogolyubov, Aria, Ariadne, Diamond, Jupiter, Ivan Aivazovsky, Kapitan Gotsky, Mikhail Lazarev, NS Pride, NS Silver, Premier, Saga, Serenade, Success, Talisman, Tango, Topaz, Triumph, Trust, Universal, Victor Konetsky, and Zaliv Baikal. Additionally, supply vessels Aleksey Chirikov, SCF Endeavour, SCF Endurance, SCF Enterprise, SCF Sakhalin, Stepan Makarov, Yevgeny Primakov, and others are included in the list.
The sanctions list also includes UAE-registered Fornax Ship Management FZCO (Fornax) and Stream Ship Management FZCO (Stream) for their support of Sovcomflot, along with associated tankers Hyperion, Pegasus, Proxima, Symphony, Atlas, Capella, Cassiopeia, Galaxy, Legacy, Vanguard, Vladimir Arsenyev, Voyager, and Yuri Senkevich.
Ships from Gazpromneft Marine Bunker are also under sanctions. The sanctioned tankers include Gazpromneft Zuid East, Gazpromneft Nordwest, Omsk, Tymen, Olanga, Murmansk, Dmitry Mendeleev, Shturman Shcherbinin, Shturman Koshelev, and Shturman Skuratov.
The sanctions list for Rosnefteflot includes the oil tankers Akademik Gubkin, Dobrynya, the oil tanker with the factory number 131040 Zvezda-DSME, Vladimir Vinogradov, Vladimir Monomakh, Valentin Pikul, Nursultan Nazarbayev, RN Ussuri, and RN Amur, the product tanker RN Sakhalin, the passenger vessel Svyatoy Knyaz Vladimir, and two oil tankers with factory numbers from the shipyard.
In addition, several shipping companies and their associated vessels have been included in the SDN List: Argo Tanker Group, Sunor, RPK Nord, LK Volga, and the associated tanker-floating oil storage Kola.
The United States has also added tankers from nearly fifty fleet operators and shipowners to the sanctions list, whose vessels are involved in transporting Russian oil at prices above the price cap of $60 per barrel. These include the Vietnamese Sao Viet Petrol Transportation Company, Hong Kong's Hong Kong Yongye Shipping Limited, Doxa Shipping Line Inc, and Wavecrest Maritime Limited from the UAE, among others. In total, over 180 vessels were affected by the new sanctions on Friday.