Sanctioned Russian state shipowner Sovcomflot (SCF Group) is sending a second tanker to Cuba with much-needed oil.
The Liberia-flagged, 116,000-dwt aframax Kazan (built 2003) loaded about 700,000 barrels at the Baltic port of Primorsk on 8 September.
AIS data showed the vessel off the Azores in the Atlantic on 19 September.
The tanker is due in Havana on 29 September in the middle of an an energy crisis in the country.
Cuba has been buying in cheaper Russian oil to add to imports from regular supplier Venezuela.
President Miguel Diaz Canel has blamed the crisis on high global fuel prices amid rationing at the pumps, Reuters reported.
A fire in August damaged part of its largest oil terminal, Matanzas, forcing a pivot towards ship-to-ship transfers.
Earlier in September, a Sovcomflot MR tanker headed to Cuba with 300,000 barrels of diesel.
The 47,000-dwt Transsib Bridge (built 2008) had loaded at Russia’s far eastern port of Nakhodka and entered Colombia’s Cartagena anchorage area.
Destination changed
But the ship did not discharge there, according to Refinitiv Eikon data, instead changing its destination to Cuba’s Matanzas.
At the end of August, TradeWinds reported that a voyage by a Trafigura-controlled tanker into South America could signal a potential new market for Russian oil as the US struggles to export enough fuel to its usual markets.
The Trafigura-chartered, 50,000-dwt Marlin Aventurine (built 2016) was booked to carry 262,000 barrels of diesel from Russia for Petroecuador in Ecuador.
