As we look around the global community in 2022, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the authoritarians of the world are beginning to congeal their alliances and consolidate their power.
There are real fears that World War III might be right around the corner, as freedom faces off against tyranny, and nations like Russia and China continue to exert their unethical ideologies on the citizens of their respective nations.
Now, as the western world continues to rain sanctions down on Russia’s head, it appears as though China is helping them to skirt some of these economic penalties.
The volume of Russian oil involved in “dark” ship-to-ship transfers has risen sharply in the past few months, as Western sanctions lead to a high degree of secrecy in global crude markets and a redirection of supplies toward Asia.
According to Vortexa, the volume of Russian crude through such transfers reached 182,000 barrels a day in the first 18 days of July, up dramatically from 44,000 barrels a day in June. The commodity data company told Insider that the majority of oil is headed to China.
In ship-to-ship transfer, one ship unloads its cargo while at sea. When such a transfer is “dark”, it means that at least one ship has turned off the tracking signal to help officers see where it is.
Beijing’s fingerprints were everywhere.
Lloyd’s List, a magazine for the shipping industry, said this week that five “elderly” Chinese ships have been at the center of recent ship-to-ship transfers of Russian crude across the Atlantic. Commodity data company Kpler told Insider that this dark transfer is also taking place amid a jump in exports to Asia compared to prewar levels.
A China-Russia alliance could be quite a worrisome proposition, particularly for the United States, as each of these authoritarian nations have been threatening America for months on end.
