OREANDA-NEWS. An oil tanker with a deadweight of 320.8 thousand tons (class VLCC, Very Large Crude Carrier), which flew the flag of Venezuela, changed its name from Ayacucho to Maximo Gorki and passed under the Russian flag. This follows from the database of sea vessels Equasis.

Ayacucho was built in 2013 and flew the Singapore flag, according to Equasis. Then, from April 2020, the ship passed under the Venezuelan flag, and in June received the Russian flag.

According to RBC news agency, this is a rare precedent, since out of more than 800 vessels that have ever flown the Venezuelan flag, there are only occasional examples of transition to another jurisdiction – Liberian or Panamanian. Now, Maximo Gorki may be the largest tanker flying the Russian flag. Prior to that, the largest storage tankers in Russia were Umba (300 thousand tons) and Kola (309 thousand tons deadweight).

The National Institute of Water Space of Venezuela is listed as the owner of the vessel in the Equasis database.