A tanker carrying Russian oil arrived in Ghana for the first time since October 2018, informed Bloomberg, citing informed sources. According to interlocutors of the agency, the ship “Tesey” reached the territorial waters of the West African country on February 24, but stood idle on the coast for more than two weeks, waiting for unloading.
The National Petroleum Administration (NPA) has issued a permit to offload the tanker, but Bloomberg sources say the process has stalled for reasons related to “national security concerns”. It is assumed that the oil delivered by Tesei will be placed in storage tanks at the Tema Refinery (TOR).
About 600,000 barrels of oil were loaded onto the Tesei at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in late January, according to tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. One of the agency’s sources said the tanker was given permission to pass after assuring that the cargo it was carrying came from Kazakhstan. “But data from Vortexa and Kpler, as well as a report from an agent at the port of Novorossiysk, showed that he was from Russia,” Bloomberg said.
A week ago, the oil tanker SCF Yenisei also arrived in Ghana, loaded with 40,000 tonnes of diesel fuel in Russia’s Baltic port of Primorsk in early February. This ship has not yet been unloaded, the agency reports.
Bloomberg remember that in December the pool of buyers for Russian oil had shrunk sharply and traders had begun to look for new markets. “The supply is being directed to storage tanks in Ghana, a country that itself exports crude oil, shipping an average of around 140,000 barrels a day over the past six months, and is located between two major oil centers. regional supplies, Nigeria and Angola,” the agency’s statement said.
According to the International Energy Agency, Russia’s oil revenues fell nearly 20% in December from November, after Western price caps forced suppliers to give discounts.
At the same time, according to the Financial Times, US Treasury officials met with the heads of the biggest oil traders Trafigura and Gunvor and urged them to resume shipping oil from Russia. One of the publication’s sources noted that Washington “really wants oil to move.”
