It is understood diesel from the 250 metre-long tanker is destined for petrol bowsers across the state, prompting claims the money of everyday Australians is inadvertently helping Russia fund its war against Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Australia, along with the European Union and other members of the G7, have imposed sanctions on Russian oil since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
China, T\u00fcrkiye and India have resisted pressure to apply sanctions and continued to import Russian oil.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An oil tanker moored in Russia in 2022. Russia has looked for other ways to export its crude oil after sanctions. (AP)<\/p>\n
But chemical engineer and anti-Russian oil trade campaigner Mark Corrigan said in spite of the bans, Russian oil was still coming into Western Australia.<\/p>\n
“About 90 per cent of our Indian supply comes from this one refinery and at the minute Russian crude makes up about 50 per cent of its raw material,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
he said.Fuel ‘sanitised’ via India<\/p>\n
Mr Corrigan said much of the crude oil was supplied by the Kremlin-controlled oil and gas company Rosneft, and made its way to Jamnagar from many parts of Russia.<\/p>\n
“Including ports from the east coast, over at the end of the Siberian pipeline, it comes from the Black Sea, comes from the Baltic, goes down to India, gets refined. And then sanitised, it comes to Australia,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And it would beggar belief that they put aside a special load [of non-Russian-sourced product] for Australia when Australia doesn’t have any laws that prohibit the import of that sanitised fuel.”<\/p>\n
He said while Rosneft had been sanctioned by the Australian government, as had Rosneft directors, Australia did not have laws to address the matter of the company’s product coming to Australia through a refinery in a third country.<\/p>\n
“Even though it’s been refined, but from Russian crude, it’s not against the law,” Mr Corrigan said.<\/p>\n
“It’s just about to become against the law in the EU, but Australia, as yet, hasn’t made any moves to follow suit.”<\/p>\n
EU attacks products made from Russian oil\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, the European Union applied sanctions to refineries that use Russian crude oil, as part of a new package further aimed at “cutting the Kremlin’s war machine”.<\/p>\n
The measure was aimed at putting pressure on India and targeting covert methods employed to subvert the sanctions on Russia, which include doing ship transfers of product mid-journey and transporting oil on a “shadow fleet” of tankers.<\/p>\n
Shadow fleets are vessels that use concealing tactics to transport sanctioned goods.<\/p>\n
“We’re going after 105 more shadow fleet ships, their enablers, and limiting Russian banks’ access to funding,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n