As the United States increasingly relies on economic sanctions as a strategic tool, sanctioned countries are expanding their use of “dark shipping” practices to evade Western enforcement, creating significant environmental, humanitarian, and geopolitical risks. In a new insight, Director of Trade Policy Jacob Jensen and Natalie George discuss the impact of dark shipping and possible policy responses.

Key points:

• Dark shipping refers to maritime practices used to conceal the location, origin, ownership, or movement of goods to evade international laws and regulatory oversight.
• The “shadow fleet” of shipping vessels transported approximately 3.7 billion barrels of oil in 2025, representing nearly 7 percent of global crude oil flows, thereby allowing countries to circumvent sanctions, preserve billions of dollars in export revenue, and reroute oil toward alternative markets.
• Russia has maintained oil exports by rerouting discounted crude to major buyers such as China and India via the shadow fleet, weakening Western sanctions; effective policy must target the demand for sanctioned oil while removing existing shadow vessels and limiting access to replacement tankers.

Read the analysis.