Dutch dockers have refused to unload a tanker carrying Russian oil as European countries approach to impose sanctions on Moscow’s energy exports following its invasion of Ukraine.
The Sunny Liger received about 60,000 tonnes of diesel in Russia’s Primorsk port in late April, according to a port report and tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
He was denied entry to a Swedish port before leaving Rotterdam and then Amsterdam in recent days, according to Niek Stam, director of FNV Havens, the port arm of the Dutch trade union FNV.
“If dockers around the world refuse cargo, we will refuse,” he said in an interview Sunday. “We are doing this on the basis of international solidarity.”
The EU will propose the phasing out of Russian oil by the end of the year
The ship is off IJmuiden, near the port of Amsterdam, and it is unclear how long it will wait there, he said.
The European Union has imposed severe trade and business sanctions in an effort to isolate Russia, but has so far ruled out oil and gas. He is going to propose a ban on Russian oil by the end of the year, with import restrictions being phased in by then, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Sunny Liger is a flagship ship from the Marshall Islands and has therefore not been officially excluded from EU ports.
“The strange thing is that it does not have a Russian flag and the cargo is not banned and is not on the sanctions list,” Dutch Foreign Minister Vopke Hoekstra told reporters on Friday after the ship could not dock in Sweden.
Diesel prices have soared since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In Europe, crude oil premiums hit their highest level since at least 2011 on Thursday, according to fair value data compiled by Bloomberg.
Rotterdam and Amsterdam, along with Antwerp, are at the heart of the European oil trading system. While the Sunny Liger is anchored offshore, another diesel carrier from Primorsk, the CB Caribic, entered the Amsterdam harbor earlier Sunday.
Source: Capital
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