Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. On November 25th the Elva, a tanker flagged in São Tomé and Príncipe, clandestinely picked up 2m barrels of Iranian crude off Malaysia’s coast. Sailing from there to north-east China, the vessel’s likely destination, usually takes two weeks at most.
But not this time. On December 3rd, alleging the Elva had breached sanctions, America blacklisted the ship, exposing anyone dealing with it to punishment. Six weeks on it is still stranded less than 20km from where it collected its cargo.
The Elva has company. Since October, when the Biden administration started cracking down on Iran-linked tankers, their crude deliveries to China, which buys nearly all of Iran’s oil, have shrunk by a quarter, to 1.3m barrels per day (b/d). At the same time, loadings from Iran have continued apace, in the hope of a change of circumstances.
The result is that there is now four times as much Iranian oil stranded at sea—20m barrels—most of which sits off the coasts of Malaysia and Singapore. In the final days of the Biden presidency America is striking Russia, too. On January 10th officials announced new sanctions against 143 tankers, accounting for 42% of Russia’s seaborne oil exports last year, as well as large exporters and insurers.
This will cause headaches in the short term for Vladimir Putin, and is one reason why Brent crude, the global benchmark, hit $81 a barrel on January 13th, its highest in five months. Yet it is Iran that faces the bigger threat. Donald Trump remains ambivalent about blockading Russia but is committed to strangling Iran’s finances.
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