Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country's entire diesel export capacity to be discharged directly into the Atlantic Ocean, beginning immediately and continuing around the clock, following a phone call with US President Donald Trump. The Russian leader said the move would have a positive impact on the world economy.
«We have confirmed our readiness to supply oil products to the American market and to world markets generally,» Putin said in a televised address. «The most efficient route is the ocean itself. The ocean is very large. It can take it.»
The Russian navy has begun escorting a fleet of tankers to a designated zone off the coast of Newfoundland, where crews work in three shifts to empty their holds. A new state agency, Rosneft-Atlantic, has been created to oversee the operation, which officials describe as a permanent fixture of the national budget.
«We estimate the positive impact will be visible within weeks,» said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. «Already the water has a certain sheen. That is the market responding.»
Trump, when asked about the arrangement, called it «tremendous» and said he had suggested the Atlantic because «it's big, it's beautiful, and nobody's using it.» He added that he had personally selected the color of the discharge pipes.
Environmental groups have been barred from the zone. The Russian Ministry of Defense has declared the area a «zone of special economic optimism» and stationed warships to keep observers at a distance.
By next week, officials say, the operation will expand to the Pacific, with a second fleet scheduled to depart Vladivostok on a route that will take it past Japan and into open water. «The world economy will feel it,» Novak said. «It will feel it everywhere.»