Shipping boss stands down after Singapore refuses visa over Russia sanctions

Singapore has refused to renew the visa of the US-born chief executive of heavy-duty shipping company Red Box Energy Services after the company was designated by the US Treasury for breaching sanctions on Russia.

Philip Adkins, who co-founded Red Box and moved the group’s headquarters to Singapore, told the Financial Times that authorities in the city-state had denied him a work visa, in effect forcing him to step down.

“I maintain the company was always compliant with all applicable international sanctions and it is my understanding my former colleagues are actively engaged with Ofac to delist the vessels — but in the meantime I am unemployed and I am no longer the CEO of Red Box,” Adkins said after the Singapore Ministry of Manpower’s decision on the visa.

Red Box was placed under sanctions by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, an enforcement agency of the US Treasury, in May following an FT story on an audacious journey by its two main ships — the Audax and Pugnax heavy-lift vessels — from China through the ice-bound Northern Sea Route across Russia’s northern shore.

The vessels delivered large structures to Murmansk in northern Russia, the biggest city in the world above the Arctic Circle, to be used in a liquefied natural gas project that is under construction and the subject of sanctions.

Adkins argued at the time that the structures were “simple steel frames” that did not breach sanctions. Industry experts said they appeared to be modules critical to the development of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project.

The UK added Red Box to its sanctions list this week. The US said last month that designating Red Box demonstrated “the United States’ continued resolve to constrain the Arctic LNG 2 project’s production and export capacity and limit third-party support to the project”.

Adkins, who was born and raised in the US, has not himself been placed under sanctions. He says he holds a passport for St Kitts and Nevis. But the Ministry of Manpower can exercise a large degree of influence over those working in the city-state through its visa system.

The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal Singapore business hours.

Adkins’ early career was as an investment banker, including helping to fund Disney movies during a long spell in Japan. He went on to run a brewery in Australia before entering the shipping industry in 2007 as chief executive of Netherlands-based Fairstar Heavy Transport, before launching Red Box.

He said he was now based in Hong Kong, where he has permanent residency. Red Box also has offices in Rotterdam.

The Audax and Pugnax vessels are capable of carrying structures weighing 20,000 tonnes and are reinforced to allow them to traverse ice-covered waters. They played a crucial role in the construction of Russia’s Yamal LNG project, which launched in 2017.

Both vessels were also designated by Ofac in May.

Adkins said that a lot of banks and other third parties had “overreacted” to the sanctions regimes and that was making business more “challenging”.

“There’s a certain amount of embarrassment and disappointment that comes with no longer being the CEO,” Adkins said. “But I accept the consequences of the sanctions, even though I don’t agree with them.”