The growing use of the so-called dark fleet is resulting in accidents. With Russia joining Iran and Venezuela in seeking vintage tonnage to shift cargoes as sanctions rain in, and major class societies, managers, and insurers shunning former clients in Moscow, there is a growing risk of substandard tonnage running into trouble.

Tanker brokers Poten & Partners highlighted two accidents that both took place last week. First, a 20-year old aframax loaded with Russian crude, which was briefly adrift off the Spanish coast and needed urgent repairs. Then there was also the case of the Young Yong (pictured), a laden 21-year-old VLCC, which ran aground in the Singapore Strait, a ship which had recently been blacklisted by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) because of its illicit transportation of Iranian oil.