The Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) this morning remains tight-lipped about the Elandra Denali, a 330-metre crude oil tanker that was said to be on its way to Saldanha to offload two million barrels of Russian oil.
The Liberian-flagged vessel entered South African waters west of Alexander Bay over the weekend and was said to be making its way to the West Coast storage facility run by the Central Energy Fund (CEF).
The only other such storage facility directly adjacent to the SFF is the tanks run by Mining Oil & Gas.
Both facilities have denied knowledge of the cargo supposedly intended for storage by South Africa, amid widespread international efforts to embargo Russian oil because of the war in Ukraine.
According to reports, the Denali was expected in Saldanha yesterday, but the South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) has said it has not received any request for a ship-to-shore oil transfer.
A search via Vessel Tracker also showed that the vessel, carrying oil transhipped via Gibraltar from the Russian port of Novorossiysk, was earlier sailing due south-east of False Bay in an easterly direction.
It was sailing outside the 370-kilometre exclusive economic zone extending into South Africa’s waters.
It is not the first time that a tanker with a Russian load has appeared to be heading for Saldanha.
About a fortnight ago the Searacer was also on its way to Saldanha but, like the Denali, rounded Cape Agulhas.
Attempts to get clarification about what’s going on from Mfano Nkutha, chief operating officer at the SFF, have been unsuccessful.
Attempts to talk to colleagues of his at the SFF have also not yielded any results.
CEF corporate affairs manager Jacky Mashapu told The Sunday Times that the SFF had not received any request for a discharge from the Denali.
Industry insiders all agreed that should the offload have gone ahead, it would certainly have been for storage only, as South Africa at the moment doesn’t have processing capacity for such a load.
The Denali load comes at a time when Russian seaborne oil exports have decreased by 14% because of sanctions against it as a result of what’s happening in Ukraine.
