Shipping experts say the Pablo’s seemingly zombie reappearance is due to a practice where transponder signals from scrapped ships are used by dark-fleet tankers seeking to camouflage their identities, locations and routes as they move sanctioned oil around the globe. — Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
After a dark-fleet ship exploded off the coast of Malaysia in May last year, its scorched wreck was sent to an Indonesian scrapyard. Then, last month, its transponder signal went live once again.
Signals from the supposedly dismantled Pablo were received from the Gulf of Guinea in October, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights, analytics firm Kpler and maritime database Equasis. According to S&P, which first reported the incident last month, the data show that the vessel was conducting a ship-to-ship transfer of cargo with another tanker owned by US-sanctioned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA.
The Pablo’s reemergence is, at best, improbable. More likely, say shipping experts, the zombie appearance is due to a practice where transponder signals from scrapped ships are used by dark-fleet tankers seeking to camouflage their identities, locations and routes as they move sanctioned oil around the globe. In some cases, tankers that are supposed to be broken down can escape dismantling, though the vessel’s condition makes that unlikely.
The Gabon-flagged Pablo’s explosion last year, 40 nautical miles off the coast of Malaysia, was a headline-grabbing reminder of the risks that come with having a flotilla of aging vessels ferrying Russian, Iranian or Venezuelan crude. The 1997-built Aframax, seen in Iranian waters in 2022, was empty at the time of the blast – but it was a worryingly close call.
The vessel then waited for months off Malaysia, as officials struggled to track down owners and insurers. In late 2023, it was eventually reflagged and renamed to make its final voyage to Indonesia to be scrapped, according to a person familiar with the matter, who cannot be named as the final details are not public. It was not in a condition to be repurposed, the person said. Several ship-tracking databases currently describe Pablo’s status as a “total loss”.
The appearance in West Africa is not Pablo’s first since its demolition last year. Various ship-tracking platforms show that one or several doppelgangers signaled from near Russia, Greece and Georgia between March and August, before appearing off West Africa. Manipulation of geolocation signals is common among dark fleet vessels. According to S&P, however, a signal sent at the time of a ship-to-ship transfer can be more reliable, given it shows the draft change and other details that are harder to manipulate.
A vessel’s automatic identification system transponder transmits its position and other basic information for navigational safety. Large vessels are required to have them in operation.
S&P identified the PDVSA tanker as Eos, a Panama-flagged Aframax that was built in 1993. Equasis shows that the tanker was in West Africa in early October. Bloomberg was not able to verify the transfer on other databases or on satellite images.
Pablo’s listed owner and manager, the Marshall Islands-registered Pablo Union Shipping Inc did not respond to emails seeking comment. Calls to PDVSA, outside of working hours, went unanswered.
A global federation of transport-worker unions in May added Gabon to its list of flags of convenience. Vessels adopting these flags do not have a clear link to the corresponding countries, the International Transport Workers’ Federation said, adding flags of convenience often lack regulation, oversight and accountability over the names on their registries.
Gabon’s transport ministry and the manager of Gabon’s shipping registry, Intershipping Services, a United Arab Emirates-based company, did not respond to requests for comment. – Bloomberg
