Although most shippers have decided to eschew Russian oil shipments for political reasons, business reasons, or out of difficulty in finding necessities like insurance or other shipping services, a few are still taking on the loads. And for those few, big rewards are presenting themselves.

One load of Russian ESPO crude transported from the eastern port of Kozmino to China in a small tanker can earn $1.6 million, which is about 300% what it would have made prior to the invasion of Ukraine. For the regular shippers from China, Turkey, and Greece, it has become a very profitable route.

They do not have any competition either. Russian crude has been rendered all but verboten to regular shippers, who fear everything from reputation damage to legal troubles from violating some aspect of international sanctions. China is nearly the exclusive importer of the higher grade ESPO crude, with only a few shipments going to India.

The most active ESPO shipper is China’s Cosco, followed closely by Russia’s Sovcomflot. Also shipping ESPO are Turkey’s Dynacom Tankers Management Ltd., Active Shipping & Management Ltd., and BEKS Ship Management & Trading SA, and Greece’s Avin International Ltd. and Estoril Navigation Ltd.

One enormous benefit of shipping ESPO to China is the route only takes five days to transit, making it among the most profitable in the world of shipping. Such a short transit time also means empty ships returning to Russia are not empty for long, reducing downtime and increasing profit. Each run with an aframax class vessel will transport about 730,000 barrels of crude.

The shipping bonanza will not last forever however. The Group of Seven nations have been looking at various ways to try and punish Russia by limiting their revenue without affecting global oil supplies. Though nothing solid has emerged from the talks yet, one proposal has been to implement a mix of capping prices, and limiting access to insurance cover and other shipping services.

As of now no deal has been finalized, but even if there were to never be a deal, the war with Ukraine cannot go on forever, and once it ends, Europe will want to normalize relations with Russia quickly to open the spigots and get Russian gas flowing. And once sanctions are lifted and Russia can sell to anyone, this unique niche service will be no more.