Three hubs handled most of Russia's sanctioned Arctic crude exports, CSIS analysis finds

An analysis by the CSIS Futures Lab, reported by High North News on 6 October, finds that three sites handled at least 77% of Russia's sanctioned Arctic crude exports since 2022, worth about $14.5 billion. According to the think tank, the floating storage vessels Umba and Kola accounted for an estimated 53%, and the ship-to-ship anchorage in Murmansk's Kola Bay for 24%. CSIS says observable AIS activity from the two storage vessels has fallen by around 85% from pre-2022 levels, and that Kola once broadcast a spoofed position off Nigeria while it was in the Arctic. It recommends tighter controls on technology for Russia's nuclear icebreakers, an earlier EU ban on servicing Russian LNG carriers and wider monitoring of transfers.

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