The United States and the United Kingdom each blacklisted a batch of tankers on 8 October without naming a single ship in common, as Washington’s shadow fleet listings concentrate on Iran’s trade and Europe’s on Russia’s.
The US Treasury listed 22 ships, all under its Iran programmes. Twenty-one of them are on no other official sanctions list, according to the Maritime Watch’s Mariel database. The UK listed 12 tankers under its Russia regime, every one of which the European Union had already listed on 24 July. Washington has not added a ship to its list under any of its Russia-related programmes since 10 January 2025, ten days before President Joe Biden left office, the database shows.
The overlap between the two sides of the Atlantic has been shrinking. Of the ships Europe listed for the first time in 2024, 55% were also on the US list by early October; for 2025 the share is 38%, and for 2026 so far 27%. Of the 158 ships Washington has listed this year, 18 are on an EU or UK list.
The Treasury described its 8 October action as targeting “the remnants of Iran’s shadow fleet: the aging network of tankers the regime relies on to move billions of dollars’ worth of petroleum and petroleum products to foreign markets”.
“[The] Treasury is starving the tyrannical regime in Tehran of the money it uses to wage war in the region, and we will continue exposing those who enable the regime’s oil sales,” said Scott Bessent, Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury said its campaign against Iran, which it calls Operation Economic Outcast, is run with “the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners, and others”.
Most of the ships it listed carry products rather than crude: liquefied petroleum gas, naphtha, methanol, fuel oil and bitumen. Eight are LPG carriers and five are bitumen tankers, built between 1991 and 2010. Ten of the owning companies share one registration address in Majuro, Marshall Islands, and eight of the companies named were set up in 2025 or 2026, the most recent in May. Two of the companies Washington designated are registered in Britain: Saint Abundant International, of Coventry, owner of the King Chain, and One Plus International, of London, linked to the Yong Tai. Neither is on the UK sanctions list. Washington also removed two container ships, the Hakuna Matata and the Pinocchio, which it said had left the shadow fleet and been sold to “non-sanctioned/U.S.-aligned operators”.
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said the 12 tankers it listed on 8 October form “part of Russia’s illicit oil trading network”, bringing the number of shadow fleet ships the UK has sanctioned to over 600. “Shadow fleet vessels are often over 20 years old, engaging in deceptive shipping practices to circumvent our sanctions, and can be sailing under false flags,” it said. Its announcement did not name the ships or refer to the EU. Twenty-two of the 40 ships the EU listed on 24 July are not on the UK list.
At least one of the 12 was still sailing in European waters after the EU listed it. The Pioneer, formerly the Sehnaz Ka, was broadcasting in Danish waters on 10 August under a Russian-allocated radio identity, 17 days after its EU listing, according to Danish Maritime Authority tracking data held in Mariel.
The Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, signed by President Donald Trump on 18 September, gives the President 30 days to impose sanctions on foreign vessels used to move Russian oil and other goods in circumvention of sanctions, and lets him treat an EU or UK listing as evidence, the Maritime Watch has reported. The law does not oblige him to use that evidence.
The 30-day period under the law ends on 18 October.
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