Dark fleet additions see Cook Islands become a top 30 flag

A flag featuring the Union Jack of the United Kingdom has become a go-to register for Russian-linked ships. 

Gabon has been elbowed out by the Cook Islands in the top 30 flag leaderboard compiled by Clarksons Research, becoming a significant home for the so-called dark fleet of tankers trading Russian, Iranian, and Venezuelan oil.

Splash has reported repeatedly this year about the rise of a number of African flags taking on many shadow tankers. The registries of Gabon, the Comoro Islands and Guinea-Bissau have each more than doubled in size in 2024 so far. 

Thousands of kilometres away in another continent, the Cook Islands is now emerging as another avenue for shadow tankers to register.

The Polynesian nation now has 259 ships, equating to 6.9m gt, on its books, having grown by 143.4% this year, according to Clarksons data, with most of this growth coming from ageing tankers.

The flag of the Cook Islands, officially known as the Cook Islands Ensign, is based on the traditional design for former British colonies in the Pacific region. It is a blue ensign containing the Union Flag in the upper left, and on the right, fifteen stars in a ring representing the 15 islands that make up the archipelago.

The dark fleet has grown to number around 700 tankers in the two-and-a-half years since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Latterly, Russia has also set about establishing a shadow gas carrier fleet.  A host of entities have been established in Dubai to move Russian gas shipments around the world, in a move that mirrors how Moscow attempted to dodge sanctions for its oil exports.

Nur Global Shipping, White Fox Ship Management and New Transshipment are some of the new names that have been established in Dubai.

The Financial Times, citing data from risk consultancy Windward, noted last week that since the second quarter of 2023, more than 50 LNG vessels have changed ownership to companies located in the United Arab Emirates.

In another striking similarity to Russia’s creation of the dark crude and product fleets over two years ago, the buildup of a gas fleet in Dubai has seen prices for ageing steam turbine carriers leap this year.