The oil tanker “Grinch” (R), suspected to belong to Russia’s shadow fleet, is seen off the coast of Martigues, near the port of Marseille-Fos, on January 25, 2026, as it is monitored by the French Navy.
Thibaud Moritz | AFP | getty images
President Donald Trump on Monday announced a US trade deal with India that he said included a promise by India to stop buying Russian oil and instead buy from Venezuela, but data shows that a shadow fleet of tankers carrying the sanctioned crude continues to unload at Indian ports.
Vessel tracking from global data and analytics firm Kpler, shared with CNBC, shows four tankers belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet that are in the process of loading or unloading sanctioned oil at Indian ports: Giannis, offloading Urals at the Chennai refinery; NYXORA, unloading Urals at Paradip Refinery; Unloading Ural at Tiburon, Vadinar refinery; and Season I, which, according to Kepler, was being tracked outside Vadinar on Tuesday morning but had not yet been unloaded.
In recent months, the global shadow fleet carrying sanctioned oil, estimated to be as large as 1,400 vessels, has been navigated around a tough US enforcement campaign on Venezuelan and Iranian oil and Europe’s intervention against the growing flow of stateless tankers loading Russian crude.
A recent Lloyd’s List analysis of the global shadow fleet following US military actions in Venezuela showed that out of approximately 50 tankers loaded with Venezuelan oil, at least five completed deliveries to China with the ship’s Automatic Identification System (AIS) operating normally, and suggested that “enforcement pressure has not yet eased.”
The US recently completed the first sale of Venezuelan oil into the legal crude market.
Sanctioned Russian crude has also faced increased enforcement measures. Recently the French seized the tanker Grinch, Which had departed from Murmansk earlier this month with a cargo of Russian oil. The French, with British assistance in tracking and surveillance, boarded the ship to conduct flag verification. The flag of the Comoros Islands is considered false. The seizure was the first example of an EU-UK plan to impose sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet. Sanctioning and seizing the Russian shadow fleet is one of many efforts to cut off Russian energy revenues while undermining Moscow’s ability to escalate its war in Ukraine.
India’s Russian oil imports have reached a record level this year.
“In 2025, India’s oil imports from Russia are expected to account for 33 per cent of the country’s total marine oil imports and 25 per cent of Russia’s marine oil exports,” said Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO. “According to US President Donald Trump, a new trade deal between the US and India could end that trade,” he said.
But Kremlin officials pushed back to journalists, saying they had not heard officially from India about any suspension of oil purchases by the Indian government.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also not yet publicly confirmed the terms of the trade deal announced by Trump.
Trump has said India should buy oil from the US or Venezuela, but even if it were to stop importing Russian crude, Rasmussen says it could instead buy more oil from the Persian Gulf.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, two-thirds of India’s crude oil and oil product imports came from the Persian Gulf. According to BIMCO, crude oil imports were to fall by 45% in 2025.
Rasmussen said he does not expect a similar decline in Russian oil exports because Russia will likely aim to find new buyers, even if that requires more discounts to buyers of Russian oil.
Shadow fleets often have to be sold at discounts, and these discounts may increase as global enforcement measures tighten. Russian crude, because it is approved, already trades at a lower price than crude oil sold on public markets.
Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, said if India closed the door on Russian oil, it would give more market power to other buyers of last resort. “This may ease the pressure on Russian receipts. The barrels usually find buyers. The question is price,” he said.
But some analysts warn that a smaller market for Russian oil could make it harder to find additional jobs for the shadow fleet trying to replace India’s.
“The only major country buying Russian oil is China, and they can already have all the Russian oil they want,” said Andy Lipo, president of Lipo Oil Associates.
With less crude coming out of Venezuela to feed the dark fleet and the Indian market potentially closed, Lipo says many of those ships could be idled or eventually destroyed.
The book states that the global shadow fleet is replaceable, and if there is an opportunity to move sanctioned oil, the owners of these vessels will take advantage of it, for example to Venezuela. “The shadow fleet moves from one area of demand to another, and as long as sanctions remain in place against other major producer exporters, you can expect there will still be some shadow vessels being used,” he said. “Tankers that were in the Venezuelan trade will now go to the Iranian and Russian trade.”
The US has announced the seizure of Bella-1 for violating US sanctions. The ship, known as the Marinera, was seized in the North Atlantic according to a warrant issued by a US federal court after it was tracked by the USCGC Monroe after recently sailing again for Russia.
Source: @US_EUCOM | US Coast Guard through x
Despite the sanctioned crude crackdown, Russia is increasingly adding to its shadow fleet, re-flagging ships that once carried oil from Venezuela. In December, 17 sanctioned ships were refloated to Russia. One of the tankers seized by the US in the Venezuelan oil blockade was a recently reflagged Russian ship.
Oil analysts say with a separate market for concessionalized oil from traditional above-board crude trading, all the enforcement actions and tariffs continue to change the economics of crude shipments. “Overall trade between nations matters,” Book said. “We are seeing oil flows shifted through restrictions and then shifted again through tariffs. There will also be logistics costs associated with these changes.”
Higher costs come from shipping petroleum over long distances as well as through intermediaries to avoid sanctions. A prominent example given by the book was the transportation of Russian oil, formerly bound for Europe, and now often bound for China.
The book explains that the economics in the oil refining business, where margins are low, favor discounts on refined oil.
“The exemption is extremely attractive to refiners,” he said, and means that the barrels of sanctioned oil being carried by the Dark Fleet “will find a home. As long as the sanctions are in place, there is potential for circumvention and resolution of the sanctions,” Book said.
These solutions will ultimately prove beneficial to China, which is the primary buyer of Russian and Iranian crude. “The more expensive a barrel becomes, the more it generates a profit for its buyer and a discount for its seller. China will probably continue to look for distressed discounted barrels,” Book said.
The Marinera oil tanker is seen off Burghhead, Scotland on January 14, 2026. The Marinera oil tanker, formerly known as Bella 1, has entered British waters at the request of the US to carry out “essential supplies”. The Russian-flagged tanker was seized by US forces between Iceland and Scotland on January 7, 2026, for allegedly violating sanctions by transporting oil to Venezuela, Russia and Iran.
Peter Summers | getty images
Lloyd’s Shadow Fleet Tracker, which covers 1,400 ships carrying mainly sanctioned Russian oil, shows an increasing flow of stateless tankers laden with Russian oil into Malaysian waters. The rise continues despite government pledges to stop it. Malaysia has a trade agreement with the US that restricts transactions with sanctioned entities.
Kpler’s maritime intelligence shows that pressure from US meddling in Venezuelan oil trade and existing sanctions on Russia and Iran are forcing these vessels to make ship-to-ship transfers as part of their efforts to go dark while carrying sanctioned oil.
“It is clear that China and India are still eager buyers of this sanctioned oil,” said Jean-Charles Gordon, vice president of maritime and logistics at Kpler. “China eats half of Iran’s oil.”
In 2025, 251 vessels were loaded with sanctioned Iranian oil – of those, 217 vessels (86%) have been sanctioned, according to Kpler data, with vessels targeted by the government to identify them carrying illegal oil. The remaining 34 ships are in the active shadow fleet, carrying crude oil diverted through fraudulent practices. The majority of these vessels (96%) performed dark ship-to-ship transfer; 77% deceived about the location of their ship; And 72% turned off their vessel location beacons for long periods of time.
According to Kpler, in 2025, there were 510 vessels loaded with sanctioned Russian oil. Of those, 305, or 59% of the fleet, were cleared. Another 86 ships, representing about 17% of the total fleet, will be considered “shadow fleet”. These vessels also engaged in deception of ship locations and long AIS intervals.
“The dark fleet is not disappearing, it is becoming more offshore, more fragmented and more extreme in practice,” Gordon said.
