Sanctioned Vessels, Pursuits at Sea: Tanker Trackers Keep Tabs
It’s been a busy couple of months for the handful of companies that track the global flow of oil, ship by hulking ship.
The pursuit of the Bella 1 oil tanker unfolded like something out of a Hollywood film. After the runaway vessel evaded capture by US forces near Venezuela in December, it went to great lengths to escape on the open sea: The crew switched off the boat’s transponders, changed its name to the Marinera and hastily painted a Russian flag on its hull, in hopes Moscow would come to its defense. By the time the US seized the ship off the coast of Iceland on Jan. 7, energy traders, analysts and politicos had been watching the chase unfold in real time for weeks from the safety of their screens.
Thanks to modern-day satellite imagery, location technology and shipping documentation—and the cottage industry of “tanker tracking” companies that use teams of around-the-clock analysts to compile, parse and sell it—even events transpiring in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean are now never fully out of sight.