On 21 March, the crew of the non-profit rescue group Sea-Watch sighted something unusual in the Mediterranean.
Instead of migrants looking for help, the group’s Seabird plane had found the abandoned hulk of the Arctic Metagaz. This 277-metre-long tanker had been drifting since it was damaged in a suspected Ukrainian drone attack near Malta in March.
The tanker, which set off from the Russian port of Murmansk in February for Port Said in Egypt, was believed to be carrying about 60,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), alongside 450 tonnes of fuel oil and 250 tonnes of diesel. Images shared by Sea-Watch, the civil sea rescue operator responsible for Seabird, show extensive damage to the vessel’s hull, raising concerns over an environmental catastrophe.
The crew reportedly returned to Russia, leaving the damaged ship to drift. First towards Italy’s coastline and then, as the winds shifted, towards Libya. By April 22 it was some 120 nautical miles north of Libya’s coastal city of Benghazi, according to the Libyan Ports and Maritime Transport Authority (IALA).
The Arctic Metagaz is a part of the so-called “shadow fleet”, which has grown in importance for Russia – and for other nations also subject to western sanctions. The fleet brings oil and gas to their customers around the world while evading these sanctions, which, for example, target ships known to have Russian links.
This means the products in question are increasingly being transported by a network of ageing, poorly maintained and often uninsured vessels of unclear ownership. They also engage in risky activities, such as turning off tracking systems and transferring oil at sea.
Growing global conflict is exacerbating this situation. Already able to attack shadow fleet vessels near Turkey, Ukraine’s Arctic Metagaz attack demonstrated its ability to strike at greater distances than before. And tankers of all kinds have been at risk due to the Gulf conflict, including at least one sanctioned vessel – reportedly crewed by Iranians – struck in mysterious circumstances.
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The routes of the shadow fleets are designed in a way that they often operate closer to Global South countries; we’re especially worried about small island and developing states.
Mark J Spalding, president, The Ocean Foundation
The fallout from these practices is increasingly causing problems for nations with little capacity to deal with them, often precisely because this state of affairs suits the shadow fleet’s purposes. These nations are typically in the Global South.
Shadow fleets, solid risks
The Arctic Metagaz was sanctioned by the US for being part of Russia’s shadow fleet. Such vessels sometimes use flags of convenience and vague ownership details to bypass western sanctions on oil and gas trade with nations including Russia and Iran.
These ships often lack proper insurance, are poorly maintained and conduct risky ship-to-ship oil transfers. Each of these factors poses severe environmental risks.
“If a vessel is prepared to go under the radar (and I mean quite literally: turning its … tracking systems off to not be detected), then there’s a very strong likelihood that they will be ignoring a whole raft of other safety and environmental regulations,” claims Sian Prior, the lead advisor to a coalition of environmental groups called the Clean Arctic Alliance. “Countries don’t know that these ships are there, other ships don’t know that they’re there, increasing the risks around shipping globally.”
The LNG cargo of the Arctic Metagaz is highly flammable and explosive.
“An uncontrolled structural failure of the remaining intact tanks would not produce a slow-spreading slick but rather a violent, instantaneous event,” explains Mark J Spalding, president of The Ocean Foundation charity.
He describes the Arctic Metagaz as a “loaded gun adrift in the Mediterranean”.
Research on explosions caused by two Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 suggests harbour porpoises and seals within a 4 km radius were at risk of being killed by the shockwaves; their hearing was at risk of temporary damage within a radius of 50 km.
Even if the LNG in the Arctic Metagaz remains contained, diesel fuel leak from the vessel could still produce a devastating, conventional oil spill.
“This is not a theoretical risk,” says Spalding. “It is an unresolved, active emergency, drifting, unmanned, and uninsured, in one of the world’s most ecologically irreplaceable seas.”
Blurred responsibilities
Nine European nations initially sounded an alarm with the European Commission over the ship’s presence close to their waters. The Arctic Metagaz has since drifted towards Libya.
Libya has invoked two international conventions: the Nairobi Wreck Removal Convention and the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol). Each provides mechanisms for responding to and being accountable for shipping accidents, with the intention of ensuring clean-ups take place. Libya has also sought help from the International Maritime Organisation, as well as from other countries.
The International Maritime Organisation says it is “ready to provide technical and coordinative assistance”. There has been no response from Russia, where the vessel is registered (the so-called “flag state”). In April, the non-profit Bellona Environmental Foundation, headquartered in Norway, reported that Italy and Malta would only mount an emergency response if the Arctic Metagaz entered their territorial waters.
“The responsibility to respond to and clean up after maritime accidents sits primarily with the flag state of the vessel,” says Prior. “But in practice, flag states for shadow fleet vessels routinely abdicate this responsibility, leaving coastal states to absorb the consequences.
“And as the shadow fleet grows and more ships are now being added to it, we’re entering a period of almost lawlessness on the seas, where the responsibilities are very blurred.”
Global South countries have often been left to face the consequences of shadow fleet accidents and operations, particularly in Southeast Asia.
The latest annual shipping safety report from insurer Allianz Commercial notes shadow fleet tanker incidents that include: the explosion of the Pablo off Malaysia in May 2023; the discovery of the Turba drifting off Indonesia in October of the same year; and the Liberty running aground in the Strait of Malacca in December 2025. In 2024, the Ceres I collided with another tanker off Malaysia and both vessels caught fire.
There have also been repeated concerns about the risks of spills from ship-to-ship transfer of oil near Indonesia’s Riau Archipelago.
The geography of abandonment
The shadow fleets typically seek the routes of least resistance to minimise scrutiny. As such, they can pose a particular risk to more vulnerable countries and environments, where less can be done to clean up problems such as spills.
For example, Bellona recorded 100 sanctioned ships sailing Russia’s northern sea route in 2025, a sharp increase from 13 in 2024. Several became trapped in ice, risking spills in a part of the world so remote and harsh that clean-ups are extremely difficult.
“The routes of the shadow fleets are designed in a way that they often operate closer to Global South countries; we’re especially worried about small island and developing states,” says Spalding. “None of them played any role in creating the problem here. These fleets are serving commercial and geopolitical interests of states that are under sanctions, such as Russia and Iran, while environmental financial costs are being exported to whoever happens to be closest when something goes wrong.”
The Arctic Metagaz is currently reported to be anchored around 20 nautical miles from Libya’s coast. The Sea-Watch crew that crossed paths with the vessel calls this phenomenon the “geography of abandonment” – akin to what they see with migrants.
“The Arctic Metagaz drifts unmanned for nearly three weeks,” describes Sea-Watch’s spokesperson Anna Giannessi. “Responsibility shifts with every nautical mile, and once it gets close to Libya, it stops being Europe’s problem.”
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
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