Four tankers the EU cited when it sanctioned their Turkish operator on 15 June are still trading and have been re-certified and re-insured by Western firms since the listing. The EU Council froze the assets of Trans KA Tankers Management as operator of the Haci Kemal Ka, the Lycia Ka and the Sumer, which it said lacked adequate liability insurance and manipulated their tracking signals while carrying Russian oil, but put none of them, nor a fourth Trans KA tanker, the Can Ka, on the EU's list of shadow fleet vessels barred from its ports. Equasis records show all four passing to White Tankers Gemi Isletmeciligi, an unlisted company at the same street number, unit and postcode in Tuzla, between 17 and 24 June. The Lycia Ka passed a Paris MoU inspection at Siracusa on 18 August with no deficiencies, records in Maritime Watch's Mariel database show.
Two lists, one used
Christian Wigand, the EU's spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told Maritime Watch on 24 September that listings of "shadow fleet enablers" can be "adopted independently of transaction bans imposed on vessels", and that the EU has "strong evidence substantiating this designation". He declined to say whether White Tankers had been considered, or whether it or the ships are now under consideration, on the ground that sanctions discussions are confidential. A company listing stays with the company, a vessel listing stays with the hull, and none of the four ships' IMO numbers appears on any of the sanctions lists the Mariel database tracks. Trading an unlisted ship under an unlisted company is lawful; whether White Tankers is owned or controlled by Trans KA is for Member State authorities to establish, and a shared address is not of itself proof of common control. Last week's carousel showed designations arriving after the ships had moved on. Here the designation arrived on time, and the ships it described were left off it.
The small-ship bill
On the carbon file, the paperwork continues to mount. Italy, Greece, Latvia and Poland asked the Commission whether the climate gain from making some 4,370 general cargo ships, offshore vessels, chemical and oil tankers and gas carriers of 400 to 5,000 GT surrender allowances from 2031 justifies the administrative burden, according to a European Commission presentation to national officials on 2 September seen by the Maritime Watch. The executive puts those ships at 10.6% of in-scope emissions, around 9 Mt of CO2, and answered that a net present value analysis "found societal benefits to largely outweigh costs for operators and authorities". Six capitals asked why these ship types were picked while passenger ships and ro-pax ferries in the same size band, a further 2.4%, stay under monitoring and reporting only until a 2031 review; five pressed on offshore, where the proposal swaps the ship category for an activity test that would catch any vessel working an EU offshore site.
Global GHG efforts looked no steadier from the Grimaldi Group's Euromed Convention in Sardinia, where Emanuele Grimaldi, until June chairman of the International Chamber of Shipping, said on 25 September that IMO member states should have adopted the industry's bunker levy plan and that he "wouldn't bet on" agreement on the Net-Zero Framework when the extraordinary session resumes on 4 December. He called the EU's emissions trading scheme a "perverse model" driving cargo from sea to road.
Maritime Watch has reported EU maritime regulatory affairs from Brussels since 2010; the archive runs to more than five thousand articles. There is much more on maritimewatch.eu, including the full Trans KA investigation and Brussels' on-record answer, and a draft IMO submission signalling that nitrous oxide from ammonia-fuelled engines will be reported rather than capped. This week's sanctions reporting drew on the Mariel database, Maritime Watch's own enforcement-records database. Free trials on request: editor@maritimewatch.eu.