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BP Is Trying to Sell Tainted Russian Oil Stuck for Months on a Tanker

BP Is Trying to Sell Tainted Russian Oil Stuck for Months on a Tanker

(Bloomberg) -- BP Plc is tendering to sell a cargo of tainted Russian oil that’s been languishing on a tanker for more than 2 1/2 months after being loaded at a port in the Baltic Sea.

The London-based oil giant is inviting other companies to bid for the 100,000-ton Urals crude load, according to a copy of a tender document seen by Bloomberg. Its level of organic chlorides -- a contaminant that can damage oil refineries if not removed -- is 29 million parts per million, multiples higher than it should be. BP declined to comment.

Russia unknowingly shipped millions of barrels of the contaminated crude through its giant Druzhba pipeline overland to refineries across Europe in late April. Some also flowed onto tankers at the port of Ust-Luga on the nation’s Baltic Sea coast.

On Wednesday, Russia’s pipeline operator said it would pay compensation of $15 a barrel to shippers for supplying substandard barrels. Belarus said it wasn’t appropriate for its eastern neighbor to dictate the level of compensation.

The tanker is the FSL Shanghai. It loaded at Ust-Luga at the start of May and has been floating in the Baltic Sea, then Rotterdam, ever since. The tender closes on Friday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sherry Su in London at lsu23@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaric Nightingale at anightingal1@bloomberg.net, Rachel Graham

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