Page 55 - IRANRptJun22

Iran’s Guard reports seizing two vessels carrying 380,000 liters of smuggled fuel
Iran to build its first hybrid tanker
Iran, Afghanistan ‘ambitious to connect Khaf-Herat railway to China via Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan
territory. For many sending goods from East to West, sending consignments along the China-Kazakhstan-Iran-Europe (Turkey) rail route instead of the China-Russia-Europe rail route is now the better option. That was part of the background to the signing of the MoU.
Geopolitical realignments also mean Iran is seeing a surge of European goods transiting the country to reach the sole Iranian oceanic port, Chabahar, which provides access to the Indian Ocean, and other Iranian ports, located along the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on April 15 that they had seized two vessels carrying 380,000 litres of smuggled fuel, official news agency IRNA reported.
Iran has become self-sufficient in gasoline production and has some of the world’s cheapest pump prices due to heavy subsidies. Potential big margins make the temptation to smuggle fuel by land or sea to regional countries strong. Iran has long seized boats accused of smuggling fuel in the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman.
IRGC naval units reported 250,000 litres of fuel discovered on one of the ships and 130,000 litres on the other. In just one week, confiscated fuel from boats amounted to 650,000 litres, a statement posted on the Guard’s official website said.
Last week, the IRGC seized a foreign vessel carrying 220,000 litres of smuggled fuel in the Gulf and detained its crew of 11, Iranian media reported.
The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) has ordered the construction of an Aframax-type tanker from a local manufacturer, Shana news agency reports citing NITC CEO Hossein Shiva.
An Aframax vessel is an oil tanker with a deadweight between 80,000 and 120,000 metric tonnes. The term is based on the average freight rate assessment (AFRA), a tanker rate system created in 1954 by Shell Oil to standardise shipping contract terms.
"The Iranian Shipbuilding and Marine Industrial Complex (ISOICO) in Bandar Abbas received an order for the construction of an Aframax-type tanker. The contract will be signed in the near future," he was quoted as saying.
Shiva noted that the capacity of the new vessel will be 113,000 tonnes, it will be the first domestic hybrid vessel for Iran, which will be fuelled by liquefied natural gas (LNG) and fuel oil with a low sulphur content.
The head of NITC added that the tanker will be built in line with modern standards of the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
Iran and Afghanistan have plans to connect the emerging Khaf (Iran)-Herat (Afghanistan) railway to China, Iranian press have reported Iran’s Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Abbas Khatibi as stating.
Though project approval has not yet been obtained from either Tehran or Kabul, officials envisage delivering Iran-Afghanistan-China rail connectivity via a route east that would exit Afghanistan on the border with Tajikistan. From there, the route would continue east to Kyrgyzstan before entering China through the valleys of the Tian Shan mountain range. A likely terminus in China would purportedly be Kashgar, an oasis city in Southern Xinjiang, with existing spurs heading north to Urumqi and connecting to China’s high-speed national rail network and through west to Kazakhstan.
The Khaf-Herat railway was in December 2020 inaugurated as the first cross-border railway link between Iran and Afghanistan. However, an 85-km stretch in Afghanistan running from Ghurian to Herat is still to be completed.
55 IRAN Country Report June 2022 www.intellinews.com