The Diplomat
Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción claimed yesterday that oil tankers from Russia “continue bunkering off Ceuta, in the Alboran Sea”.
According to the environmental organisation, this activity continues, despite the fact that the Ministry of Transport, through the Directorate General of the Merchant Navy (DGMM), has submitted a proposal to the legal committee of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), to limit the transhipment of oil from Russian ships off the coast of Ceuta, bound for Asia.
Verdemar recalls that these activities “are prohibited by the European Union against Russia after the invasion of Ukraine”, and that it has already denounced the facts to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, without having received “any reply”.
“There are dozens of ships coming from Russia that travel through the Baltic Sea, passing through the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar to wait for other ships and carry out unloading,” he said.
The environmentalists point out that at the moment “there are three ships coming from the ports of Ust-Luga Anch (Russia) and Primorsk off the coast of Ceuta waiting to unload fuel: the oil tanker Volans under the flag of Barbados, the vessel Simba currently under the flag of Cameroon and the Vesna under the flag of Belize”.
“These bunkering operations are being carried out in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Alboran Sea at times, others in the Zone Contiguous to the Moroccan Territorial Sea, without control and sometimes with satellite monitoring switched off”, they add.
They also recall that bunkerig operations are regulated by the International Maritime Organisation in the Marpol Convention, and fuel transfers in the E.E.Z. must be communicated to the coastal state.
Verdemar Ecologistas en Acción denounces that such practices in the area are dangerous and put the environmental values of the Alboran Sea at risk.
