NGO claims almost 2 million barrels of Russian oil imported to UK since Ukraine invasion

Almost two million barrels of Russian oil has landed in the UK since the invasion of Ukraine, Greenpeace has claimed.

According to the environmental group, the imports total 257,000 tonnes and have an estimated value of almost £220 million.

Since Russia launched an illegal invasion of Ukraine in February, it is alleged a total of eight tankers have delivered shipments to the UK – roughly one every week.

And Greenpeace claims another ship, carrying 33,000 tonnes of Russian diesel, is currently anchored off the coast of Immingham, Lincolnshire, ahead of docking.

More than four fifths of the oil imports have been Russian diesel, with the rest made up of fuel oil, the group added.

There has previously been confusion around the source of some hydrocarbons arriving in the UK though, due to the intertwining nature of pipelines.

Greenpeace previously alleged that Russian oil had been offloaded in England, when in fact it was from Kazakhstan and had been transported by the Caspian Pipeline to a port on the Black Sea for export.

Westminster hit the Kremlin with a raft of sanctions following the invasion, many of which are designed to hit Russia’s oil and gas industry, a major source of revenue for the country.

A ban is in place on Russian owned, operated or flagged ships entering the UK.

© Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

But Greenpeace claims that Russian fossil fuels are still able to pour into Britain via tankers owned and flagged by other nations.

And the group has branded the UK Government’s actions “tokenistic”, while also calling for sanctions to be tightened.

Georgia Whitaker, oil and gas campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The UK government is no stranger to hypocrisy but pledging ‘unwavering support’ to Ukraine while shipping in almost 2 million barrels of Russian oil is utterly disingenuous, even by Boris Johnson’s standards.

“This war has cost at least 2,000 civilian lives so far [4]. That’s 2,000 innocent deaths largely funded by fossil fuels. Despite the mounting death toll, the UK government has given itself until the end of the year to stop importing Russia’s bloody oil.

“Sanctions don’t work until they’re implemented and eight more months of oil and gas imports is eight months too many. It’s clear we need an explicit and immediate ban on all Russian fossil fuels.”

© Supplied by Greenpeace Nordic

Earlier this week activists from the environmental group blocked a tanker moored in Norway, with the intention of preventing it from offloading Russian oil products at an Esso-owned terminal.

Since February Greenpeace has been monitoring Russian fossil fuel shipments through its Russian Tanker Tracker.

The Twitter bot uses shipping data to monitor supertankers delivering oil and gas from the country.

Greenpeace claims six of the shipments to the UK have come from the Russian port of Primorsk, with the remaining two from Tuapse and Vysotsk.

It also alleged that they have docked and offloaded at five ports across the UK – Merseyside, Essex, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire.

A UK Government spokesperson said: “We will phase out Russian oil by the end of the year, and imports of Russian liquid natural gas as soon as possible thereafter. The UK has no issues with either gas or oil supply, and unlike Europe we are not dependent on Russian energy imports.”