The "Washington Post" (WP) revealed that some of the petroleum supplies bought by the US Department of Defense through vendors in Greece and Turkey may be of Russian origin, despite Western restrictions that limit their pricing.
Petroleum products are delivered to the US military under Pentagon contracts via the Greek oil refinery Motor Oil Hellas on the Aegean coast.
Following the implementation of sanctions on Russian oil, it began to enter not directly at the plant, but through an intermediary - a Turkish oil terminal in the city of Dortol, where the Russian oil was blended and loaded onto multiple tankers to conceal its origin.
According to WP estimates, 5.4 million barrels of fuel oil have entered Dortyol by sea over the last two years, with all but 1.9 million barrels arriving from Russia. Since the imposition of EU sanctions in February, 2.7 million barrels of Russian oil have been transported to the Turkish metropolis.
4.2 million barrels of fuel oil were delivered from the terminal to Motor Oil Hellas over the same time. These supplies account for at least 56% of the entire volume of fuel oil received by the Greek refinery via sea.
WP is unable to identify the precise amount of Russian-origin fuel oil in the items purchased by the Pentagon. Many untraceable substances are employed to refine these items.
Since March 2022, when the United States introduced sanctions to restrict Russian oil, the Pentagon has inked new contracts with Motor Oil Hellas for about $1 billion US dollars.
The Pentagon notified WP that it is unaware of the Russian provenance of the oil products since compliance with sanctions is the duty of the contractors, specifically Motor Oil Hellas. The agency itself lacks control mechanisms.
According to Motor Oil Hellas, the firm "does not buy, process, or trade in Russian oil or products," and "all of its imports are certified as non-sanctioned origin."
Earlier, it was claimed that the US Treasury had written inquiries to 30 owners of around 100 ships suspected of shipping Russian oil in breach of the price cap agreed upon by Western countries. /BGNES
