- Greek oil ships are avoiding Russia after some firms received letters from the US Treasury.
- The letters asked Greek ship owners to explain how they complied with the $60 oil price cap.
Greek ships are now starting to avoid Russia, thanks to a a sternly-worded letter from the US Treasury.
The volume of Greek-owned oil tankers headed to Russia is set to drop 25% this month, to 15 ships in November from 20 ships in October, according to shipping data compiled by Bloomberg. Greek tankers headed to Russia are already down 60% from levels recorded in mid-2023, when as many as 50 Greek ships were carrying Russian oil.
That drop could prove to be big a deal for Moscow, given the importance of its oil trade to the country's overall economy, and Greece is the world's largest ship-owning nation, according to 2022 data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. In January last year, Greece accounted for 18% of the world's ship market, UNCTAD data shows, more than any other individual country.
The drop in Russia-related shipping activity comes just a few weeks after the US Treasury sent letters to some Greek ship owners, asking them how they were complying with the G7's $60 a barrel price cap on Russian oil.
The letters are part of the West's efforts to crack down on price cap rule, which forbids ships owned and insured by Western companies from trading Russian crude above the $60 threshold.
There is technically no way of enforcing the rule, a US Treasury official said last year, since it mostly operates on an honors system.
Russia was also to have said to skirted the price cap rule by disguising the origin of its oil through its secretive fleet of shadow tankers, or by raising shipping costs on its crude to obscure that actual price per barrel.
But western shipping companies are now treading more carefully as the US appears ready to further crack down on its efforts to crimp Russia's war revenue. After sanctioning five oil ships for trading Russian crude outside of the price cap, one such vessel was unable to dock on the shores of India, Bloomberg reported — a sign India is also now bowing to pressure to maintain good ties with the US, even if it means it has less access to deeply discounted Russian oil.