One such hole is that there are currently no measures to prevent European companies engaging in ‘ship-to-ship’ transfers of oil, provided that these take place within international waters. One such spot is a patch of sea just off the Suffolk coast, where at least twice this May British-crewed vessels helped to transfer Russian oil between tankers.
These ship-to-ship transfers are vital to the Russian oil industry, as they enable their products to travel over vast distances to reach new markets in East Asia, which have proven incredibly lucrative.
This simply would not have been possible without the assistance of British and European ships.