India tightens shipping sanctions, de-classes 235 shadow fleet ships

India’s main ship class certifier has moved to shut the door on sanctioned tonnage, de-classing 235 vessels since 2023 and pulling about 13 million gross tons out of circulation. The Mumbai-based Indian Register of Shipping said the decision matters because a ship without class can struggle to get insurance, gain port access or keep trading normally, turning a technical paperwork choice into a real pressure point for the shadow-fleet economy.

Arun Sharma said IRClass would no longer take vessels sanctioned by the United States, European Union or United Kingdom. He described the past two years as a major clean-up of ships that could not satisfactorily explain why they were sanctioned and said the registry now has a very comprehensive sanctions policy. Most of the vessels de-classed were oil tankers, with a smaller number of gas carriers.

The scale is notable for a maritime institution founded in 1975 as a not-for-profit classification society and now a member of the International Association of Classification Societies. IRClass says it has more than 2,300 ships under class totaling above 23.5 million gross tons, so removing 235 sanctioned ships represented a substantial shift in its own fleet footprint and a sign that compliance decisions can move real shipping capacity.

The tougher stance lands against a wider background of sanctions evasion that has kept oil moving for Iran and Russia through hundreds of shadow-fleet ships. Those vessels have raised the risk of oil spills, fuel leaks and opaque ownership in busy shipping lanes, where weak oversight can leave coastal communities exposed to environmental damage long before any enforcement action catches up. Sharma warned that even a strict registry cannot control what cargo a vessel carries after it leaves the dock, noting that a ship that looks non-Russian or non-Iranian on paper could later load Iranian oil elsewhere.

India’s move also reflects its own energy dilemma. As the world’s third-biggest oil importer and consumer, it has to balance supply security with compliance risk, and last month it declined Russia’s offer to sell liquefied natural gas subject to U.S. sanctions. The message from Mumbai is that sanctions enforcement no longer depends only on governments: a class society can still disrupt the machinery of sanctioned trade by deciding which ships it will no longer vouch for.