Troubled shadow VLCC closes in on endgame
The much-renamed 2002-built tanker now known as Era resurfaces under the Comoros flag, bound for Trinidad, with a demolition-linked manager.
A rusting 333-metre crude tanker with one of the more colourful recent histories in the shadow fleet looks to be approaching its endgame. The 2002-built VLCC Era — known until recently as Marinera, and before that Bella 1 — has resurfaced under the Comoros flag after yet another change of identity. Public tracking data now lists the ship as Era, showing a destination of Chaguaramas in Trinidad & Tobago.
Shipping databases list the elderly tanker as owned by Global Marketing Systems and managed by Blue Whale Maritime, a Mumbai-based outfit involved in technical management, crew management and demolition-voyage services. A fresh Comoros flag, repeated name changes, overdue drydocking and a manager active in demolition voyages will naturally fuel speculation that the tanker's next leg could be its last.
Its recent past has been anything but quiet. On June 12, Avtandil Kalandadze, the former master of Bella 1, pleaded guilty in Washington DC to failing to obey a lawful order to heave to a US Coast Guard cutter. Sentencing is set for August 7, with the offence carrying a maximum five-year prison term. According to US authorities, Kalandadze was master of Bella 1 from September to late December 2025, during which the vessel carried around 1.8m barrels of Iranian-origin oil to Asia using sanctions-evasion tactics including AIS dark activity and concealing the ship's name during ship-to-ship transfers.
The case escalated in December when the US Coast Guard intercepted Bella 1 off Venezuela. Rather than comply, the vessel fled across the Atlantic, with the pursuit ending on January 7 when US authorities seized it in the North Atlantic. During the chase the ship was renamed Marinera and reflagged to Russia — a move US officials said did not change its legal status. US vice president JD Vance later described it as a "fake Russian oil tanker" that had pretended to be Russian to dodge sanctions.
Until recently the ship had been with Burevestmarin, a small Russian outfit that also had the 2003-built aframax Lileo — formerly Galileo and Veronica — on its books. That vessel is now registered under Global Marketing Systems and Blue Whale Maritime. Together, the two ships point to another chapter in the afterlife of ageing shadow-fleet tonnage, where sanctioned trading histories, repeated identity changes and demolition-linked management increasingly collide.
