Russia Turns to Morocco as New Hub for Oil Transfers, Tech Imports Amid Sanctions

Marrakech – As Western sanctions tighten their grip on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, the country has been forced to find new avenues to maintain its oil exports and access to critical technology.

A recent report from Bloomberg has highlighted Morocco’s emerging role as a key partner in Russia’s efforts to circumvent these restrictions.

It noted that Russian oil traders, under pressure from the Greek navy’s deterrence measures, have shifted their ship-to-ship transfer operations for Urals crude oil to the Mediterranean coast near the Moroccan city of Nador.

This marks the first time such transfers have taken place in this location, with the Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) Rolin receiving Urals crude from smaller Aframax-class tankers like the Serendi, Ocean AMZ, and Sea Fidelity.

These smaller vessels had collectively loaded about 730,000 barrels of Urals from Russia’s Baltic seaport of Primorsk last month.

The shift to Moroccan waters comes as European states grow increasingly wary of allowing such cargo switching near their coasts.

Previously popular sites like the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and the Laconian gulf in Greece have seen a significant reduction in Russian ship-to-ship transfers due to pressure from local authorities and the European Union.

The International Maritime Organization has also condemned cargo switching in open oceans as a “dangerous practice.”

In addition to its role in facilitating Russian oil exports, Morocco has also become a hub for transshipments of restricted technology to Russia, according to a New York Times report from December 2023.

The Times’ investigation was based on leaked Russian government emails, trade documents, and records of online conversations between Russian engineers. It revealed that Russian authorities and companies have exploited loopholes and cultivated workarounds to obtain the technology needed to keep its economy and war effort in Ukraine running.

One such workaround involves using the Tangier Med container port near Tangier as a transshipment point for goods from global tech manufacturing centers. These goods are then placed on other ships bound for Russia, effectively disguising their final destination.

The Times report also highlighted the use of obscure Russian e-commerce sites like Nag, which have sourced American equipment through a network of suppliers in China, helping companies like Convex, a Russian telecommunications firm, obtain the necessary gear to transmit data to the country’s intelligence service, the F.S.B.

The success of these tactics raises questions about the effectiveness of Western trade restrictions and the ability of tech giants to control the final destinations of their products.

Elina Ribakova, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, emphasized in the Times report the difficulty in stopping the global movement of commercial technology, likening it to an “endless Whac-a-Mole game.”