Sliding oil prices have reopened the door to Russian crude

One group isn’t hanging around. A cadre of Greek shipping magnates has sent a stream of ships to Russian ports in recent months, stepping back into the fold as the go-to distributors of Moscow’s crude to the world.

The jump back into the lucrative trade follows a fall in oil prices this year. Handling Russian oil is legal under Western sanctions if the price is below $60 a barrel.

The Greek moves also reflect signs of a rapprochement between the U.S. and Moscow soon after President Trump’s return to office. But Trump’s recent criticism of President Vladimir Putin—including a warning of further sanctions—shows why many other Western companies have been cautious about rebuilding their businesses in Russia.

Greek shipping companies collectively control the world’s biggest tanker fleet, giving them a powerful role in the oil market and access in Washington. Recent meetings with Trump administration officials left some Greek shipping chiefs more confident they won’t be targeted for handling Russian exports, people familiar with the discussions said.

“Everyone’s feeling like it’s safe to go back," said Michelle Bockmann, a London-based maritime analyst. “The mood music is Iran no, but Russia yes."

A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. wanted to give diplomacy a chance and that there were “a range of measures available" if Trump “determines that Putin is not interested in negotiating."

Greek ships moved 26% of Russian crude shuttled from Baltic and Black Sea ports in April and 30% in March, more than double their market share in 2024, according to Vortexa, a firm that tracks ships.

Most other European and U.S. tanker companies have avoided ferrying Russian oil. They see risks in operating in a country at war with an ally of Western governments and whose economy is under a patchwork of sanctions.

Greek tanker owners mostly stopped ferrying Russian crude in late 2023 when oil prices rose above the $60 cap, a measure introduced to limit Moscow’s profit from a key export. That left most of Russia’s crude to be handled by the “shadow fleet" of aging tankers with obscure owners, which was assembled by Moscow to sidestep the sanctions.

Greece is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union, and agreed to enforce measures to isolate Russia’s economy after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

But this year, a surge in Saudi output, coupled with concerns that the trade war will hurt the world economy, has dragged the price of benchmark Brent crude down 14% to about $64 a barrel. Russian barrels fetch closer to $50, reflecting the discount attached to the country’s oil since the start of the war.

At the same time, oil traders have called on Greek tankers to replace dozens of shadow-fleet ships that have effectively been put out of action by new Western sanctions.

Among the tanker owners sending their ships back to Russian ports are Ioannis Alafouzos, Andreas Martinos and George Prokopiou, according to shipping data and industry executives.

The Alafouzos family controls more than a dozen tankers through Okeanis Eco Tankers, which is listed in New York. At the request of its Scandinavian investors, the company stopped handling Russian oil in 2023, soon after the sanctions took effect.

But the family kept moving Russian petroleum with tankers it owns privately. Mostly named after islands in the Cyclades, the ships have picked up Russian crude nine times this year, according to the shipping data.

In all, Alafouzos-controlled vessels have called at Russian ports about 140 times since the war started, the data show. Several dozen of the trips were to transport Kazakh crude exported from Russia’s Black Sea coast.

Alafouzos is a prominent figure in Greece, where he owns the soccer club Panathinaikos as well as a newspaper and TV station among other assets. His son, Aristidis Alafouzos, is Okeanis’s chief executive.

Alafouzos Jr. told analysts last year that sailing in the Black Sea was no riskier than the Arabian Gulf. “And the AG is somewhere where everyone goes," he said.

Prokopiou’s Dynacom Tankers has loaded Russian crude six times this year, shipping data show. Martinos’s Minerva, meanwhile, sent its first tanker to pick up Russian crude in more than a year this March. Another Minerva ship is due to load in the Baltic port of Primorsk within days.

Both companies have also moved Russian products, including diesel and Kazakh crude, from Russian ports dozens of times this year.

Spokespeople for Dynacom and Minerva didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Tanker owners can demand higher freight rates to charter their ships to traders moving Russian oil than for mainstream voyages. The premium partly reflects the legal and compliance costs of working in Russia. There is also less competition as many Western tanker companies consider Russia off limits.

To be sure, not all Greek tanker owners think freight rates are high enough to compensate for the risks associated with ferrying Russian crude.

One of them is George Economou, who controls a fleet through TMS Tankers. Economou moved huge amounts of Russian crude after the price cap first took effect in late 2022 but is sitting out the current rush, according to people familiar with the matter.

TMS is instead limiting its Russian business to a type of fuel oil.

“It’s a fluid market situation," said Basil Karatzas, chief executive of U.S.-based Karatzas Marine Advisors. “Many shipowners have a different risk assessment."

Write to Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com and Costas Paris at costas.paris@wsj.com