Sovcomflot

The tanker responsible for a 40km oil slick along Oman's Gulf coast has been identified as the Caroline Bezengi, a vessel linked to Sovcomflot and sanctioned by five jurisdictions. It grounded on 21 June carrying roughly 800,000 barrels of Russian crude; Oman's Environment Authority reported the slick reaching toward Masirah Island, a sea-turtle nesting site, on 13 August, with monsoon weather hampering cleanup .

Iran's foreign ministry said the same day that any future Hormuz arrangement must include compensation for coastline damage, citing costs in the trillions, but named no responsible party or vessel . The Sovcomflot link to the spill is source reporting, not an Iranian government attribution.

Sovcomflot's tanker Universal, a separate vessel from the crude-carrying Caroline Bezengi involved in the Oman spill, was carrying diesel toward Cuba's Matanzas terminal when it diverted without declaring a destination on 26 May, stranding a 270,000-barrel diesel cargo and leaving Moscow without a named replacement .

The diversion followed a narrowing licensing window: OFAC's General Licence 134B, which had protected the Universal's cargo through 16 May, expired without a Cuba-specific renewal, and GL 134C excluded Cuba from the rolling Russian-crude waiver entirely from 17 June . Sovcomflot's only other named Cuba delivery, the Anatoly Kolodkin, had landed crude on 31 March; no tanker followed it for seven weeks, feeding a 21 June blackout across most of the island.