Secretive Shipments of Iranian Oil to China Are Under Threat by U.S.
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Iran, China and an array of middlemen have evaded U.S. sanctions for years by shipping oil on aging tankers with opaque records and transferring cargoes between ships at sea, all to avoid scrutiny and legal liability.U.S.
forces boarded one such sanctioned tanker that has frequented China and Iran as it sailed on Tuesday through the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Sri Lanka and Indonesia.The interception of the stateless M/T Tifani, along with the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, is part of a forceful effort to thwart a secretive oil trade that has flourished for years and largely thrived after nearly two months of war.“It’s like you’ve been driving the same road every day and you see one person in the HOV lane over and over and over, and finally you see one that gets pulled over,” said Raymond Powell, director of the SeaLight project at Stanford University which tracks Chinese maritime activity.The Tifani is just one vessel in the so-called shadow fleet that sustains Iran and its oil trade with China, its No.
1 customer. There are more than 500 ships in the shadow fleet that serves Iran, according to United Against Nuclear Iran, or UANI, a U.S.-based advocacy group.This elaborate evasion system includes a substantial amount of Iranian oil already at sea and far from the Middle East.
If the U.S. continues to target this floating supply, it could cut into an important source of income for the Iranian regime.
Without that financial cushion, Tehran would find it much harder to sustain the war and drag out talks to end it.Iranian crude already at sea is an important buffer for Iran’s ability to export oil. More than 160 million barrels of Iranian crude and condensate are currently
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