Abandoning an oil tanker or other commercial vessel has gone from being something rare to becoming a dangerous trend: in 2025 alone there are 410 vessels registered, an abysmal difference compared to the 20 cases in 2016, according to data from the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), a global trade union organization that tracks these incidents. What is causing this rebound?
The first affected: the crew. An abandoned oil tanker does not only mean neglecting the vessel itself, but also more than 6,000 sailors abandoned to their fate, according to ITF global figures. The most affected are Indian sailors, with more than a thousand people affected representing the majority of the total.
One case is that of Iván (not his real name), the chief deck officer of an oil tanker that has been abandoned for weeks outside the territorial waters of China, which recently declared for the BBC how this event has affected their health and the environment: “We had a shortage of meat, cereals, fish, basic things to survive.” And that’s not to mention the uncertainty of seeing the Chinese coast and not knowing if you’ll be able to set foot on it.
The context: the ghost fleets. Over the last few months we have heard about “ghost ships” or “zombie ships”, that is, ships that legally barely exist, with owners hiding behind front companies. The objective is to operate outside the official financial and regulatory framework to evade sanctions through “prohibited” routes such as Iran, Russia or Venezuela. The Ukrainian War and the context of sanctions have created a B market for old ships that transport oil.
The ideal candidates to become ghost banks are aging vessels, generally oil tankers that are around two decades old, a critical age at which the vessel is already headed for scrapping, which makes it easier for them to move into that clandestine scenario. Whoever buys it is not going to invest in long-term maintenance, he wants to pay it off quickly by transporting sanctioned crude oil. These types of boats lack complete insurance such as P&I Clubsso that in the event of any problem, the shipowner disappears before assuming repair or repatriation costs.
The legal trap of rental flags. Here the “flags of convenience“, something like the tax haven of the seas. This is what happens when a shipowner registers his ship in a country other than his own to benefit from more lax regulations. There is a legal disconnection between the real ownership of the ship and the state that gives it the flag. And what does it have to do with abandoned oil tankers? According to the ITF82% of abandonments occur on ships that operate under flags of convenience.
Among the states with flags of convenience are Panama, Liberia and the Marshall Islands, which represent 46.5% of all merchant ships. But there is one country that deserves a special mention: Gambia. In 2023 it went from having no ships to having 35 sailing under its flag, a record time to create that infrastructure organically. In addition to softer legislation, many of these countries outsource inspections to private organizations and lack sufficient technical personnel to verify it afterwards, such as notes the International Maritime Organization in several reports.
Prisons and floating time bombs. Ivan’s is just one case, but what an example: The ship is carrying almost 750,000 barrels of Russian oil that has a nominal value of about 50 million dollars (42 million euros). He left the Russian Far East for China at the beginning of November 2025 and there he is, at the gates of his destination and unable to enter.
It is so that the alarms go off due to the environmental risk posed by a possible spill from an abandoned ship without responsibility. Furthermore, the safety of the vessel is compromised, as human error accounts for more than 80% of maritime accidents and these sailors are not exactly at their best. Fortunately, the ITF took charge of the situation in December, providing payroll arrears up to this point, providing groceries and other essentials, and planning repatriation.
It is not an isolated problem. The drastic increase in abandoned oil tankers represents not only a violation of international sanctions and regulations, but also a human drama and potential environmental disaster for which there would be no legal responsibility to cover it.
Although it is true that there are interventions and approaches and that there are states putting pressure on those countries that are banners of flags of convenience like Gambia and achieving something in the attemptthe reality is that this is a global phenomenon that requires stricter international regulation, serve as an example India’s blacklistwhich included 86 foreign ships in a database for abandonment of sailors and violation of their rights.
Cover | Jack Dong
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