Page 11 - DMEA Week 09 2020

DMEA TRANSPORT DMEA
Sanctioned Iranian fuel oil heading to markets via Iraq
IRAN
Not only are export levels rising, but also the number of cases of tankers “going dark.”
SANCTIONED Iranian fuel oil is being exported from Iraq’s Khor al-Zubair port, Lloyd’s List Intelligence data indicates.
Some 2.1mn tonnes of so-called dirty cargoes – crude oil and other black oils – were loaded from Khor al-Zubair’s offshore port limit (OPL) in January, Lloyd’s List reported, versus 1.3mn tonnes a year earlier. OPL shipments increased to 23.8mn tonnes in 2019 as a whole, compared with 11.4mn tonnes in 2018, the year when Washington began imposing sanctions on Ira- nian exports.
The OPL volumes tracked by Lloyd’s List do not differentiate between crude and fuel oil. Khor al-Zubair is the main port handling Iraq’s fuel oil shipments, but in volumes much greater than indicated by official data provided to the Joint Organisations Data Initiative (JODI), according to Lloyd’s List.
Not only are export levels rising, but so too are cases of tankers “going dark”, or switching off their automatic identification systems (AISs) while in the OPL area, Lloyd’s List said. This indicates that ship-to-ship transfers are being carried out this way to mask the identity of the other ship and the cargo origin, the shipping journal stated.
Some of the tankers involved have discharged off Fujairah, in the UAE, including four that are “undertaking a range of deceptive shipping practices associated with sanctions-busting activities,” Lloyd’s List said. Among them are
two very large crude carriers (VLCCs), the Pan- ama-flagged Duras and Duna, which within the last six months have been sold to unknown own- ers linked with shell companies. They share the same International Safety Management (ISM) manager in India.
Both VLCCs have sailed to offshore Malay- sia, a known floating storage hub for Iranian crude and ship-to-ship transfers, according to Lloyd’s List. These and other tankers have been seen switching off their AISs around Iraq after traversing the Strait of Hormuz or engaging in ship-to-ship transfers.
Four tankers managed by Dubai shelf com- pany Seapro Technical Service and owned by British Virgin Islands shelf firm Nautical Won- der have also been identified regularly travelling from Khor al-Zubair to Fujairah and conducting ship-to-ship transfers in the OPL area without using their AISs, according to Lloyd’s List.
The St Kitts & Nevis-flagged aframax tanker Phoenix 1 has been in the area twice in Decem- ber and January. Vessel-tracking data cited by Lloyd’s List shows it has gaps in its AIS records and was loaded while it was dark. Its ISM man- ager is also based in India.
Lloyd’s List noted that similar shelf company practices with Indian ship management had been seen at the Iranian-controlled VLCC Grace 1, seized off Gibraltar last summer and held for six weeks for shipping crude to a refinery in Syria, in breach of EU sanctions. ™
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