Washington increases pressure on Iranian oil

The US government has sanctioned a network of companies and shipping facilitators that transfer oil revenues to Iran’s military.

IMAGE: Getty Images

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on six vessels, targeting Iran’s ‘shadow fleet’ of tankers to export its oil to the global market.

“Iran’s military has increasingly come to rely on the sale of Iranian crude oil to supplement its annual budget and finance the rebuilding of its depleted forces,” OFAC said.

The US treasury department has targeted Panama-flagged KALLISTA, owned by Greece-based Altomare, for transporting nearly 4 million bbls of Iranian oil between January and February of this year, in several shipments on behalf of previously sanctioned Iranian oil firm Sepehr Energy Jahan.

Palau-flagged crude oil tanker PIONEER SAM has transported over 10 million bbls of Iranian fuel oil across more than 30 shipments in the past two years.

Another target, UAE-based shipping company Alsafeenah, has provided ship-to-ship oil transfer services in the Persian Gulf on behalf of Sepehr Energy Jahan, involving sanctioned National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) vessels that offloaded Iranian cargoes to shadow fleet vessels for transshipment to Asia, the US treasury department further claimed.

The US administration has sanctioned thirteen more maritime companies for conducting similar fraudulent oil trades. The Trump administration has so far sanctioned over 170 vessels responsible for shipping Iranian petroleum and petroleum products, it said. 

OFAC alleges that these vessels engage in other obfuscation techniques to hide their activities, like ship-to-ship (STS) transfers after daylight hours, Automated Identification System (AIS) spoofing, and conspicuous gaps in AIS location reporting.

By assembling a shadow fleet of poorly maintained vessels to circumvent sanctions meant to restrict the movement of Iranian crude oil, Tehran has effectively generated thousands of dollars in revenue to support regional armed groups, including the Yemen-based Houthis and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

The move reinforces the Donald Trump-led US administration’s commitment to tightening sanctions on Iran as it strives to bring the OPEC member’s oil exports down to zero.

By Aparupa Mazumder

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