15 risk factors, no insurance: Is this the most dangerous tanker on the Baltic Sea?
Journalists from Estonia and Finland say they have identified "the most dangerous tanker in the Baltic Sea" after investigating Russia's shadow fleet vessels and cataloguing dozens of risk factors.
The joint investigation was carried out by journalists from Estonian media outlet Delfi and Finnish publication Helsingin Sanomat. An English summary has been posted on Delfi journalist Holger Roonemaa's Substack blog, The Baltic Flank.
The journalists analyzed vessels connected to Russia's shadow fleet, old ships often in bad condition that are used to transport oil and evade Western sanctions.
They identified the 23-year-old Ailana as "the most dangerous tanker in the Baltic Sea" after analyzing more than 700 shadow-fleet tankers that sailed through the Gulf of Finland in the last three months.
"The Ailana is 23 years old. It lacks an ice class rating and has no credible insurance. Its actual owner is hidden behind a Hong Kong-based corporate advisor. Even Russia deemed the vessel "high-risk" as early as 2023. It regularly performs ship-to-ship oil transfers—a maneuver regarded as exceptionally risky—and currently carries 100,000 tons of sanctioned Russian crude oil," Roonemaa wrote.
The investigation also found that approximately 100 tankers have a similar number of "red flags" and studied the consequences of an oil spill in the Baltic Sea.
Read the summary of the investigation here in English or the full article here in Estonian.
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Editor: Helen Wright
