Norwegian shipping company transports cooking oil for Russia – news Norway – Overview of news from various parts of the country

On 7 August, the Norwegian-owned and Norwegian-flagged tanker “Champion Ebony” entered the Taman terminal in Russia to pick up Russian cooking oil. The Russian port is located in the far north of the Black Sea. On the other side of the strait lies the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula and the rest of Ukraine. At the same time, Russia is bombing Ukrainian warehouses for grain, to prevent Ukrainian exports. One of the many attacks occurred five days earlier, in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa. 200,000 tons of grain were destroyed. The headquarters of Champion tankers in Bergen. The shipping company does not want to be interviewed by news. Photo: Kjell Jøran Hansen / news The shipping company Champion Tankers in Bergen denies that they are doing something that is ethically questionable, and says that they follow the UN and EU sanctions regulations and the UN’s desire to get food out into the world. The shipping company also denies to news that the business benefits Vladimir Putin or his war of aggression. But we help provide the world with food, says the shipping company. news has surveyed the Bergen shipping company Champion Tankers’ operations in Russia: Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February last year, ships from the shipping company have made 42 port calls in Russia, according to the shipping company itself. At 12 of these port calls, ships from the shipping company have loaded on board sunflower oil and soybean oil, which have been transported mainly to China and India. From St. Petersburg, the shipping company has transported Russian fertilizer for export. news’s ​​mapping shows that the shipping ports are Taman and Novorossiysk in the Black Sea and St. Petersburg. Taman is a Russian port in the far north of the Black Sea. Here, several of the ships in the Bergen shipping company have loaded cooking oil on board. – This fuels what Russia is doing in Ukraine Ukraine’s acting ambassador to Norway, Liliia Honcharevych, reacts strongly to news’s ​​information. – Unfortunately, it is not illegal to transport this type of cargo. But when Russia blocks Ukrainian ports and withdraws from the grain agreement, the operations of this shipping company from the NATO country Norway are unethical. – This fuels what Russia is doing in Ukraine. It helps Putin kill Ukrainians, says the acting ambassador to news. This was the grain agreement: The grain agreement was an agreement on the safe transport of grain and foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports to the world. The agreement was between Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 led to a complete halt to the export of grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine. In addition, Russia temporarily halted its grain exports, further exacerbating the situation. This resulted in an increase in world food prices and the threat of famine in Africa and other low-income countries, and accusations that Russia used food as a weapon in the war. The agreement was supposed to ensure that Ukrainian ships with grain could pass safely out of the Black Sea and out to the rest of the world. Up to 33 million tonnes of wheat and other cereals have been exported under the grain agreement, according to the UN. A quarter of this was exported to poor countries in Africa and Asia. Earlier this summer, Russia withdrew from the grain agreement, because Russian demands were not met, according to Russian authorities. The violation of the grain agreement was strongly condemned in the UN. EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called Russia’s decision “cynical”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of using the grain agreement as a weapon in the war against Ukraine. After Russia withdrew from the oval, Russia has attacked Ukrainian grain warehouses and ports that ship agricultural products into the country. As a reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which violates international law, the EU has introduced extensive sanctions, which Norway has agreed to. Grain and other food products are not part of the sanctions. Liliia Honcharevych is Ukraine’s acting ambassador to Norway. Photo: private Defending transport Each of the shipping company’s ships that transport cooking oil holds between 33 and 40 million liters of sunflower oil. Bergensrederiet, which according to its own website is one of the leading shipping companies in the transport of cooking oil, does not want to be interviewed by news. But they have responded to email. Karl Kvalheim, general manager and largest owner in the shipping company, writes that their operations are in line with what the UN, EU and USA want. “If we stop transporting this type of cargo, it will interfere with and make it difficult for the food supply in the world. We support Ukraine in their defense of their own country, but the world still needs to produce food. Otherwise, this tragedy will be even greater and affect many more people.” That’s what Kvalheim writes to news. Karl Kvalheim is the majority owner of the shipping company. Photo: Paul André Sommerfeldt / news He believes it is wrong for news to hang up his shipping company. In response to Ukraine’s acting ambassador’s criticism, Kvalheim writes that “If we are unethical, the UN/US/EU and Norwegian authorities are similarly unethical. It must be up to them to decide what we can or should do.” Kvalheim also writes that the shipping company has transported cooking oil from Ukraine. And that Norway imports cooking oil from Russia. “So what is the ethical difference between our transport to the world market and a perfectly valid Norwegian import of the same type of product?” writes Kvalheim in an e-mail to news. Is the cooking oil from Russia or Ukraine? news has been in contact with researchers in Norway and Poland with knowledge of Russian and Ukrainian agriculture, and the shipping of food out of Russia. They point to two problems. It is very difficult for this shipping company to know whether sanctioned companies and persons are hiding in the value chain for these transports. Russian agriculture is a very closed sector, with close ties to the power elite in the Kremlin, say news’s ​​sources. It is almost impossible for the shipping company to know whether the cooking oil from Russia actually originates from Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine. On 21 September 2022, Russia declared that four Ukrainian oblasts – Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk – will be incorporated into Russia. All the counties are partially occupied by Russian forces. It is in this part of Ukraine that much of the cultivation of sunflower oil and soybean oil takes place, according to a note from the US Department of Agriculture. Here, on an outcrop in the Russian port of Taman, Champion Ebony lay on August 7 this year. The red lines are the route of the ship, as shown on Marine Traffic. Photo: Google/Marine Traffic The Norwegian-Russian researcher Pavel Baev tells news that it is impossible to check whether the cooking oil the shipping company transports out of Russia originates in Ukraine. Baev is employed by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). The Russians consider the occupied territories of Ukraine as part of Russia. Therefore, they see no reason to distinguish between cooking oil from these areas and Russia, according to Baev. Pavel Baev at PRIO. Photo: PRIO / Julie Lunde Lillesæter – Should there be a need for it, Russia has no problem signing on to what it should be, to ensure that the cooking oil does not originate from occupied areas. But we know that a large part of the sunflower oil is produced in Ukraine. This means that Russia can now increase its exports because of the occupied territories, says Baev. Liliia Honcharevych, Ukraine’s acting ambassador, says it is very difficult to check whether the cooking oil the shipping company is transporting is actually from Ukraine. – But we have a strong suspicion that the cooking oil comes from the occupied areas in Ukraine, she says to news. A Russian oligarch has, through his agricultural company, acquired control over Ukrainian farmland, writes the Wall Street Journal. His name is Alexander Tkachov, is a close ally of Vladimir Putin and former Russian Minister of Agriculture. The shipping company writes to news that none of the cooking oil they transport originates in Ukraine. All parties involved will be checked against the sanctions, the shipping company assures. This must be done in order to get insurance on the ships, the shipping company writes to news. – There is a kind of mafia behind this. There may be a breach of the sanctions if the shipping company has transactions with persons or companies that are on the EU’s sanctions list, which Norway follows. The shipping company says they are investigating this carefully, using international lawyers. But Pavel Baev at PRIO says the Russian agricultural sector is a sector with little opportunity for insight. – The companies that are at the front look completely legal and legitimate, while the interests behind are very dirty, says Baev. – There is a kind of mafia behind this, which exports food, and which hides its tracks because of the sanctions. While the big companies that are behind and control the whole thing are definitely sanctioned, says Baev. He says shell companies have been set up to ensure that exports can take place to circumvent the sanctions. – So pretending that it is okay to do business with Russia, such as helping the country to export food, does not hold water, says Baev. – Those who are behind and control the export of food are to a large extent part of Vladimir Putin’s “war cabinet”. Very little of this ends up in the pockets of the Russian farmer, says Baev. Pavel Baev believes that what the shipping company is doing is very questionable, ethically speaking. – Companies that cut all operations in Russia do not do so because they have to because of sanctions, but because they believe this is the right thing to do. They take the losses, and avoid profiting from the situation, says Baev, with a clear address to the Norwegian shipping company. Iwona Wiśniewska is a researcher at the Polish institute Center for Eastern Studies. Photo: private The Polish researcher Iwona Wiśniewska is an expert on the Russian economy and has a background in the Ministry of Finance in Poland and the Polish Embassy in Moscow. She agrees with Baev. – It is difficult for this shipping company to know whether the cooking oil they transport originates in the occupied areas of Ukraine, because the Russian agricultural sector is very closed and the major players have very close ties to the Kremlin and to Vladimir Putin. For the same reasons, it is difficult to know whether there are sanctioned companies or people who are hidden somewhere in the value chain, she tells news. Record earnings 2022 was a smash year for Champion Tankers. The shipping company had a record profit of almost NOK 800 million. – How important were assignments from Russian ports for this result? – Relatively unimportant. You can also see that from the number of port calls, which was 1,287, of which only 42 were from Russian ports, writes Kvalheim in Champion Tankers to news. Freight rates, i.e. what the shipping company gets paid for transport, were high throughout last year. This contributed to 2022 being a good year for all tanker companies. And if there is a risk associated with the assignment, the transport often costs more. – Have the freight rates from Russia increased more than the general rates? – We have not seen that shipping to and from Russia has risen more than the general market, replies Kvalheim. In 2007, President Vladimir Putin was presented with plans for the construction of a modernized port in Taman. In this port, ships from the Norwegian shipping company Champions have unloaded and loaded cooking oil several times in the past year. – We condemn all cooperation with Russia Norwegian-Ukrainian Natalia Ravn-Christensen is spokesperson for the Ukrainian Association in Norway. She reacts strongly to news’s ​​information about the Bergen shipping company. – We condemn all cooperation with Russia. Every ruble that the Russian treasury receives in taxes means that more Ukrainians die. The war will stop when Russia no longer has the finances to go to war, she says to news. – Stopping all exports from Russia is particularly important in view of Russia’s terrorist behavior regarding the grain agreement. Ukraine is not allowed to send food to the world. Food is bombed and burned. Ukrainian Natalia Ravn-Christensen, here during a support demonstration for Ukraine in Oslo. She helped start the Ukrainian Association in Norway in 2004, and was the association’s first leader. Now she is the association’s spokesperson. Photo: private The Norwegian Shipping Association has Champion Tankers as a member. The managing director, Harald Solberg, emphasizes that they assume that the regulations for sanctions are followed by the shipping company. – The UN has been very clear that trade in food and fertilizer products must be maintained to avoid a food crisis in the world. The balance between allowing some trade, while at the same time wanting to strangle the Russian economy as much as possible, is a balance international authorities have taken in developing the sanctions regulations, says Solberg. The Russian embassy in Oslo has not responded to news’s ​​inquiry about this matter.



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