Sea transport giant oil emerged over the past 18 months from virtually nothing. This is an Indian company. Gatic Ship Management, which only had two tankers just two years ago. But from the moment Russia invaded Ukraine until April, it bought 56 ​​tankers and became one of the largest shipowners in the world. It should be noted that 13 of them were purchased in December, when the EU oil embargo came into force. against Russia.

In a related report by the Financial Times, citing shipping experts VesselsValue, according to which the total cost of these vessels is $ 1.6 billion. However, the source of the money used to purchase these tankers remains a mystery, and the relevant company documents do not know anything. but educational.

According to the British newspaper, the company was registered as an exporter in India on March 31, but does not appear in any official register of companies in the country. The only thing is that it has the same address as Buena Vista Shipping, the same unknown and small company that had only $100,000 in assets two years ago. In the absence of other information, analysts, commodity traders, freight brokers and many other factors Insiders The market suspects that the giant’s rise from nothing in record time stems from some close ties to Gatic’s biggest buyer, Russian oil giant Rosneft.

The tanker fleet recently acquired by Gatik was mainly used to transport oil from Russia, mainly to Indian ports. This follows from the records of the tankers. Indeed, according to FT’s analysis of Kpler’s data, the company in question has transferred at least 83 million barrels of Russian oil and oil products. This is a volume capable of meeting the needs of the UK in oil for more than two months. And most of this amount came from Rosneft.

Almost exclusively in the transportation of Russian oil, Gatik Ship Management has become one of the largest shipowners in the world.

As Victor Katona, Head of Research at Kpler, points out, “After the sanctions imposed by the West, the transition of Russian oil companies to the sea transportation of oil was inevitable, and the case of Gatic is indicative of what is happening.” He describes the Gatic case as “a company friendly to the Russian state that has grown from nothing into a giant, buying huge numbers of tankers in less than a year and serving almost exclusively Russian oil flows.” Indeed, Western restrictions on the Russian oil industry have caused fundamental changes in the oil markets.

Rosneft, the flagship of the Russian oil industry and the largest producer in Russia, was at the epicenter of the storm. Igor Setin, CEO of the company and close associate of the President Putinconsidered a tough guy and has the nickname Darth Vader, after the dark “villain” from Star Wars.

Western sanctions became a major problem for Rosneft because it did not have its own fleet to transport oil by sea and relied on its clients to transport it. In short, it will have to find not only new buyers for its products, but also other tankers to carry its oil.

But as freight rates for Russian oil have risen, a veritable “ghost fleet” of tankers of unknown ownership has been created, willing to risk sanctions to serve this lucrative new market. When it comes to India and Indian companies, few offer good alternatives to Gatik and Buena Vista.