Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The first fleet of Russian diesel tankers that was supposed to prove Trump’s deal with Putin is running into a wall at sea.
A month after the White House waived the sanctions needed to let Russian diesel cross the Atlantic, the ship movements this week look nothing like the delivery schedule the president announced.
Of the vessels being tracked toward US ports, most have changed signals, turned around, or set a new course for somewhere else entirely.
According to a ship-by-ship analysis published by maritime intelligence firm Windward on November 3, only one of the three vessels it was watching still appears on a trajectory likely to end at a US port. The other two have effectively left the deal.
Talisman to the Mediterranean, Leruo to Brazil
The Russia-flagged Talisman, under US, UK and EU sanctions, sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar and changed its AIS destination from “Atlantic Coast FO” to “For Order,” according to Windward.
The Sierra Leone-flagged Leruo, also sanctioned, amended its destination from “Atlantic coast for order” to “Brazil for order” after departing Russia’s Baltic port of Primorsk on October 16.
That leaves the Malta-flagged Agioi Fanendes, which loaded roughly 40,000 metric tons of ultra-low-sulfur diesel at Primorsk on October 22 and had declared the Port of New York and New Jersey as its destination. Its AIS now reads “for orders,” though its course still points toward the US northeast.
Blumenthal: “Reverse course while there’s still time”
The Agioi Fanendes is also the vessel that drew the sharpest intervention from Washington. In a letter reported on October 28 by Maritime Executive, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, wrote to Eastern Mediterranean Maritime Limited, the Greek manager of the tanker, warning that unloading the cargo would break US law.
“Should the Agioi Fanendes [arrive] and discharge its cargo, you would be engaged in an illegal transaction,” Blumenthal wrote to the company, according to Maritime Executive. He added that the Treasury’s general license “purports” to authorize the trade but cannot override a statute passed by Congress.
In a public post, Blumenthal told the shipping companies to “reverse course while there’s still time,” Maritime Executive reported.
New Jersey closes the door
On November 2, New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, wrote to port operators in her state telling them not to accept the fuel. Accepting a Russian diesel cargo, she warned, “would likely subject businesses and individuals to harsh penalties, both civil and criminal.”
The legal argument on which both officials rest is the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of 2022, a bipartisan statute that bans Russian energy imports and that only Congress can lift.
Trump announced the diesel deal with Vladimir Putin on October 9, the same day OFAC issued General License 135 authorizing transactions in Russian diesel through April 7, 2027. As of this week, no Russian diesel cargo had been discharged at a US port under the arrangement, according to Windward’s tracking.
