The European Union wants to extend anti-Russian sanctions to ports of third countries

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Business FM on the 20th package of EU anti-Russian sanctions:

"Sanctions that relate to some third countries, Indonesia, Georgia and others, are rather such an addition. To be honest, I do not know what volumes pass through these countries, but it is unlikely that these are any significant quantities, since until now Russian oil still did not need such a "gray" transshipment, like Venezuelan oil, which first went to Malaysia, and then in the form of Malaysian oil was further exported to China. Such secure schemes were not required for the supply of Russian oil. Therefore, we are probably talking about some simple transshipment services. There are probably some formal claims related to violations of EU sanctions legislation.

Nevertheless, a key part of this package is related to a complete ban on maritime services. And this is what could potentially be the most sensitive from the point of view of forming a "shadow fleet", especially for LNG, since the package includes a complete ban on the sale, transfer, leasing of ships, and of course, there are many questions about insurance and reinsurance of technological services, including maintenance of equipment that is already installed on ships there.— which is related to the use of the port structure, pilotage, and other things. There's actually a very large list. Although, perhaps, just the part related to the ban on maritime services will not be fully approved, because at least Greece, Cyprus, Malta, which provide freight for Russian oil, are likely to protest and try to achieve at least some exceptions from this package".