On 30 April 2025, shipping and commodities analyst Michelle Wiese Bockmann reported that Russian state-owned Sovcomflot, the country’s largest shipping company, had faced yet another refusal to register its vessels under the flags of Gabon and Barbados. As a result, three of the company’s tankers – Mirabel (IMO 9511521), Primavera (IMO 9511533) and Carma (IMO 9341081) – were given a home port in Oman.

Until 2022, Sovcomflot had been flying the flag of Liberia, one of the largest and most respected registries based in the United States, for more than 20 years. However, in 2023, after the company's vessels were sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Liberia refused to register them. As Reuters reports, Sovcomflot, which owns more than 145 vessels, including the world's largest fleet of Aframax tankers, was forced to look for alternative flags. Initially, the choice fell on Gabon, which actively registered vessels of the fleet transporting Russian oil in circumvention of sanctions. But under diplomatic pressure from the West, Gabon removed its flags from the company's tankers in 2024, forcing it to re-register the vessels in Barbados.

Barbados, whose registry is managed from London, has also proved a temporary solution. In January 2025, Barbados and Panama announced they would remove their flags from 114 Russian “shadow fleet” vessels due to increased sanctions from the UK, EU and US.