Legal despite sanctions: This is how a Swiss company makes billions with Russian oil

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The Russian oil trade has been under sanctions since the outbreak of war. These are aimed at preventing Russian President Vladimir Putin (70) from financing his war with oil deals. Geneva-based company Fractal Shipping has made billions of dollars from Russian oil since the outbreak of war – and completely legally.

Fractal Shipping has been on the market since February 2022. The company quickly formed a fleet of 27 ships. To remind you, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Shortly after, the EU imposed the first sanctions against Russia, which were adopted by Switzerland. However, the Geneva-based company has transported around 3 billion francs worth of Russian crude oil and Russian petroleum products since April 2022, as “SonntagsZeitung” wrote.

The sanctions state that since the end of 2022, no Russian oil will be able to be imported by ship to Europe or the USA. At the same time, financing, insurance and chartering of vessels carrying Russian oil is prohibited.

Easily deliver to other regions

But the Geneva-based company has found a backdoor. Companies from Europe and Switzerland are allowed to transport Russian oil to other regions. You cannot go above the top price of $60 per barrel. This limit is aimed at limiting Putin’s profits. But this has only worked moderately: figures from the Finnish “Research Center for Energy and Clean Air” show that Russia has earned about 58 billion euros from oil exports by sea since the end of 2022. Because of companies like Fractal Shipping, among other things.

Because since the outbreak of the war, many shipping companies have actually withdrawn from the Russian oil business. They don’t want to finance the war. But at the same time, new companies were emerging, such as Fractal Shipping. The fleet was financed at a value of CHF 550 million thanks to a “Dubai-based group of investors”.

On closer inspection, the ships are on paper owned by shell companies in the Marshall Islands represented by 25 different Indian directors. But this is not intended to hide anything: “We have contracts with the companies that own the ships and have carried out the usual checks”, one of the managing directors, Karl Martin Nygaard, assures the Norwegian business newspaper “Dagens Næringsliv”. . He investigated the case together with “SonntagsZeitung”.

But Fractal Shipping isn’t the only one taking advantage of it. “In the past few months, Russia’s export capacity has increased by 100,000 barrels a month thanks to new players with old tankers ready to transport Russian oil,” says analyst Viktor Kurilov of consulting firm Rystad Energy. An anonymous expert at the scene explained to “SonntasZeitung” that although there are many such companies, Fractal is one of the market leaders. (kae)

Source :Blick