I saw this large oil tanker in the Bosphorous yesterday. It is called the Energy Triump and it is owned by shipping company Golden Energy. It was transiting, slowly, from the Black Sea direction to the Mediterranean.
I did a little bit of digging, and this is what I found out. The tanker is 8 years old. It is currently flying under a United Kingdom flag. [1] In 2025 it called at Novorossiysk in Russia and Basrah Oil Terminal off Iraq. Currently it is sailing from Novorossiysk to Santa Panagia, Italy. [2] Recently it has been to Spain and Turkey. [3] It is owned by a Greek shipping company, Golden Energy. [4] It is 277 metres long and has a beam of 48m.
My first assumption was that it was carrying price-capped Russian oil to Asia. This would be ‘legal’ – and could still be done under a UK flag. However; I was puzzled by the destinations in Spain and Italy. The likely answer, based on AI, but it makes sense, is that it is carrying Kazakh oil from the Caspian Pipeline near Novorossiysk; this oil is not sanctioned by the EU. Russia has blocked Kazakh oil flowing thorugh the Druzhba Pipeline which goes through Ukraine to Europe, but not this route. Recently Kiev has damaged the Caspian Pipeline at Novorossiysk, prompting complaints from Kazakhstan. [5] But oil is still flowing.
So, that seems the most likely explanation; is that the UK Flagged Energy Triumph is carrying Kazakh crude which has transited Russia via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline and is being loaded at Novorossiysk – and is being sold to customers in Turkey, Italy and Spain.
Is the price-cap working?
While on the subject of the oil ‘price-cap’, the mechanism by which the EU uses its dominant position in issuing marine insurance to try to control the price at which Russia can sell its oil, I dug into that. Despite all the bold statements from Kaja Kallas and von der Leyen, as one would fully expect, this mechansim is thought to be totally porous. The idea that Russia was not going to find ways round a paper based system is naive in the extreme; a nice example of the naivety of the law-making classes who think that there is no space between a regulation they make and what actually happens on the ground. This is a quote from an official at a global Marine Insurance organization:
I get an attestation, which is a compliance with the price cap, but I know actually that something different is happening in the background…and this is something where no law can prepare you for these particular cases. [6]
As you would expect, (if you are not Kaja Kallas), there are a range of schemes which ensure that there is an ‘official’ price for the insurance paperwork, but the actual price paid is much higher. The simplest such scheme appears to be just charging buyers for extraneous services, additional freight charges etc., which stay off the goods paperwork. But, there also seem to be more complex schemes involving middle-men.
But, as I say, the tanker I saw in the Bosphorous yesterday, is probably carrying Kazakh crude to Europe.
Update – the Energy Triumph is probably carrying some Russian crude.
However; it turns out that even that is not so simple. This source says that a) Russian companies are involved in extraction of Kazakh oil and the CPC and b) about 10% of the oil treated as Kazakh is in fact Russian, as Russia, by a long-standing arrangement, piggy-backs onto this flow. The EU accepts this and formally treats CPC oil as Kazakh even though around 10% of it is Russian – and Russia gets the revenues. [7] The article is well sourced and the 10% figure is directly supported by a US Department of Energy source. [8] (The article appears to be produced by a campaigning NGO, but, as I say, the data appears to be well-referenced). Von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas know this; so, once again, the bold statements about “sanctioning Russian oil” and “squeezing Putin’s warchest” appear to be hot air.
Notes
- https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9817614
- https://maritimeoptima.com/public/vessels/pages/imo:9817614/mmsi:232012788/ENERGY_TRIUMPH.html
- https://magicport.ai/vessels/tanker/energy-triumph-mmsi-232012788
- https://magicport.ai/owners-managers/greece/golden-energy-management-sa
- https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2026-02-04/ukrainian-attacks-cpc-oil-pipeline-outlook-kazakhstans-oil-sector
- https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/ship-insurers-warn-russian-oil-price-cap-evasion-risks-dark-fleet-2023-04-27/
- https://crudeaccountability.org/the-caspian-pipeline-consortium-russian-and-western-accountability-in-the-oil-and-gas-sector-during-wartime/ – (See also https://www.statista.com/statistics/1440406/caspian-pipeline-consortium-shareholders/ for confirmation of Russian involvement in the ownership structures)
- https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51838
