Tanker Sofia may have caused an oil spill

The tanker Sofia was located in the area of ​​environmental disaster

A new oil spill into the Black Sea, which was recorded near Anapa on April 7, occurred in the area where the Sofia tanker was located, experts from the Transparent World satellite monitoring project established . As Vorstka found out, this ship is part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” thanks to which the Kremlin continues to trade oil in circumvention of sanctions.

“At the time the spill occurred, the tanker Sofia (IMO 9211999) under the flag of the Russian Federation was at the point. Now it is considered as a possible source of pollution,” noted Transparent World, having analyzed satellite images using the methods of the Institute of Oceanography of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The project did not specify the causes of the spill, the volume of emissions and the exact composition of petroleum products. According to their preliminary assessment, we are talking about crude oil or heavy heating oil.

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Sofia operates mainly on the Black Sea and calls at Turkey and Romania

As Vorstka found out, Sofia (formerly Sanar-7) is a crude oil tanker built in 2000. Since the beginning of 2025, it has been included in the sanctions lists of the US, UK, EU, Switzerland, New Zealand and Canada as part of the Russian “shadow fleet”. According to the Ukrainian War Sanctions project, the ship sails mainly in the Black Sea; it also called at the ports of Turkey and Romania.

According to War sanctions, the ship is affiliated with the sanctioned company Rosewood Shipping. Its founder is the Yug Energo company, which owns the Novoshakhtinsky Oil Products Plant - this is the leading oil refining enterprise in the Rostov region.

In April 2021, Yug Energo came under the control of the Bashkir holding Peton, one of the largest engineering organizations in Russia. Peton is a major contractor for Gazprom. Due to this, in 2017, its owners Igor Mnushkin, Oleg Polyakov and Vladimir Zaitsev became leaders in the Forbes “Kings of Government Order” rating.

Fuel oil and dead birds are once again washing up on Anapa beaches

On April 11, Governor of the Krasnodar Territory Veniamin Kondratyev reported to Vladimir Putin about the opening of all beaches in the region this year after they were cleaned up from the fuel oil spill that occurred in December 2024. However, on the same day, 11 km from Anapa, authorities discovered a new oil slick, and oil products and hundreds of dead and smeared birds began to wash up on the beaches again. According to environmentalists, by April 12, at least 320 birds had suffered.

As Vorstka previously reported, the average age of an oil tanker in the Russian shadow fleet is about 18 years. At the same time, malfunctions are common for the shadow fleet. Owners of such vessels try to avoid inspections and neglect safety.

Photo: Tanker Sofia (formerly Sanar‑7) passes the Bosphorus. marinetraffic.com

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