The shadow fleet vessel Caroline Bezengi, carrying roughly 800,000 barrels of Russian crude oil, grounded on June 30 off Oman inside a 667-square-kilometer marine reserve. The oil spill affected between 390 and over 2,000 square kilometers of marine and coastal areas, with cleanup cost estimates ranging from $200 million to $500 million. Neither the registered owner (dissolved), nor the insurer (unidentified), nor the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (covering up to $279 million) is expected to pay, with the Fund invoking the ‘act of war’ exclusion. Oman is left to manage the environmental crisis alone. The article suggests that environmental regulations may become the legal basis for intercepting shadow fleet vessels, allowing action without explicitly taking sides.
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