EU Announces New Sanctions on Companies and Individuals Over Russian Oil

The European Union has adopted fresh sanctions targeting companies and individuals accused of helping Moscow to circumvent Western sanctions on oil exports that help to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The EU has imposed 19 packages of sanctions so far, but Moscow has managed to adapt to most measures and is still selling millions of barrels of oil to India and China, albeit at discounts to global prices. Much of this is transported using a so-called shadow fleet of vessels operating outside of the Western maritime industry.

The latest EU sanctions prohibit the bloc’s citizens from doing business with the listed companies and individuals, reducing their access to major shipping and insurance providers. The EU has listed more than 2,600 individuals and companies in total.

The new sanctions target nine individuals and entities supporting Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, the Council of the European Union and the EU’s Official Journal said, referring to businessmen linked to oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil as well as shipping companies that own and manage tankers.

The EU listed Valery Kildiyarov, finance director of Litasco Middle East DMCC, a trading subsidiary of Lukoil, and three people – Anar Madatli, Talat Safarov and Etibar Eyyub – over ties to trading firm Coral Energy, renamed 2Rivers Group.

Also among those targeted is Canadian-Pakistani oil trader Murtaza Lakhani, CEO of trading company Mercantile & Maritime.

“Through his companies, he enables shipments and export of Russian oil, notably from the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft,” said the listing in the EU’s Official Journal.

“In particular, Murtaza Lakhani controls vessels transporting crude oil or petroleum products, originating in Russia or being exported from Russia.”

Lakhani, Mercantile & Maritime, Litasco Middle East DMCC and 2Rivers Group did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Lakhani, 63, has faced intense scrutiny since starting his career at global trader Glencore, which sent him to Baghdad as an agent during the Saddam Hussein-era. He later moved to Iraq’s Kurdistan region, where he acted as a middleman between the oil ministry and international companies.

He set up Mercantile & Maritime Group, a mid-sized trading house with offices in Singapore and London, in 2014.

“This country (Russia) is the largest resource country in the world. Hampering it is a very short-term effect, not a long-term goal for anybody. They will always need Russia,” he told Russia’s SolovievLive at the St Petersburg Forum in June.

(Reporting by Lili Bayer and Julia Payne; writing by Louise Breusch Rasmussen; editing by Mark Heinrich and David Goodman)