A SANCTIONED CARGO ship accused of breaching international sanctions against Russia has been spotted off the Galway coast.

The vessel, which is a Liquified Natural Gas cargo vessel, entered the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) last night having travelled up the coast of Portugal and across the Bay of Biscay.

The ship, named New Energy, is a Palau registered craft and has been named in a list of US State Department sanctions.

The US has accused the ship of flouting sanctions imposed on Russian oil and gas which has been imposed since the invasion of Ukraine. 

Earlier this month, on 5 September, the ship was added to the list of sanctioned vessels and companies. It was also claimed in a US State Department statement that New Energy conducted a secret mission to transfer Russian gas.

The statement said: “The Department of State is targeting two entities and two vessels connected to attempts to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.

“The Department is sanctioning Gotik Energy Shipping Co (Gotik) and Plio Energy Cargo Shipping OPC PVT LTD (Plio Energy). Gotik and Plio Energy are the registered owner and commercial manager, respectively, of the LNG carrier (LNG/C) New Energy.”

The US further claims that New Energy used “deceptive shipping practices, including shutting off its automatic identification system” to load cargo from another sanctioned vessel on dates in late August.

In the same release they also identified another ship LNG/C Mulan which is another ship owned by the company Plio Energy.

The New Energy’s track on publicly available marine traffic systems show that the vessel turned on its AIS tracker system off Portugal. 

It is suspected that it had made its way from another location, possibly North Africa, and then began behaving as it was a normal cargo ship transiting up the western European coast line.

As of Wednesday afternoon the New Energy was off Galway and make its way north – it had no ultimate destination listed. 

The Journal asked the Department of Transport if it was aware of the vessel and if the Irish Naval Service was involved in monitoring it on behalf of the Irish Government.

In a statement a spokesperson said: “This ship flies the flag of Palau. Under the relevant international Maritime Conventions, Palau as the flag state has responsibility for ships flying its flag.”

It is understood that a number of governments are monitoring the ship and other vessels suspected of breaching Russian sanctions. 

In February The Journal reported on an oil tanker making its way up past the Irish coast also. On that occasion the Irish Government confirmed the navy and the Coastguard were monitoring its passage. 

The shadow or dark fleet is a term coined to describe as many as 500 ships that are part of a flotilla of vessels used by Russia and Iran to move oil and other products around the world. 

It has been claimed that this is an effort to find a way around international sanctions introduced in the wake of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Sources have said that the Russians are not the only nation involved in such activities and other sanctioned states such as Iran and North Korea are also engaged in the smuggling.  

In April of last year a number of commercial Russian ships were spotted in the same area off the west coast and were monitored by the Irish Air Corps and Naval Service. 

It is believed those ships were en route to an oil project off the west African coast. 

General Hans-Werner Wiermann, head of Critical Undersea Infrastructure Co-ordination, previously told The Journal that it was fair to assume Russian ships were mapping critical infrastructure off the coast.