Environmentalists have launched protests against a Russian tanker bringing oil into New York, amid a flurry of oil imports into the US before a ban on oil and gas coming from Russia comes into force.
Activists from Greenpeace set out in two boats to intercept the Minerva Virgo oil tanker on Tuesday morning as it set about unloading its cargo in the port of New York. The green campaign group, which unfurled a banner reading “Oil fuels war” in front of the 50,000-ton tanker, had already confronted the Greek-flagged vessel on Sunday as it made its way to the port.
“The oil and gas companies that are responsible for our skyrocketing gas prices are the same companies that are fueling conflicts and death around the globe,” said Anusha Narayanan, climate campaign director at Greenpeace USA, who was on one of the boats. “A more peaceful, livable, and equal future depends on breaking our addiction to volatile and conflict-driven fossil fuels.”
The protest aimed to highlight how the US is continuing to import oil from Russia after Joe Biden’s decision on 8 March to ban the intake of oil and gas from Russia in what the US president called a “powerful blow to Putin’s war machine”.
The White House allowed a 45-day grace period for oil imports after the announcement, meaning that ships bringing fossil fuels from Russia won’t be able to dock at American ports from 22 April. Some oil companies have decided to “self sanction” by not taking product from Russia, although there have been exceptions, such as Shell buying a heavily discounted consignment of Russian oil, before apologizing for doing so.
This grace period is seeing plenty of activity, with a Greenpeace tracker showing that dozens of Russian oil shipments have headed towards the US and Europe. At least a dozen tankers that have left Russian ports have either unloaded in the US or are about to arrive.
This includes the Kronviken, a crude oil tanker anchored near Houston, the Riverside, another crude oil tanker heading for Florida, and the Balla, a tanker bound for Los Angeles.
Narayanan repeated climate campaigners’ demand for Biden to invoke the Defense Production Act, normally used in times of war to compel companies to churn out weapons, to force businesses to produce more solar panels, wind turbines and other clean energy technology.
“True energy independence can only come from renewable energy,” she said.
The administration has, however, been more focused on rebutting claims by the oil industry and Republicans that Biden has declared “war” on domestic fossil fuel production. The Biden administration has given out oil and gas drilling leases at a faster rate than Donald Trump did, although many of these leases on public land remain unused by the industry.