The Problem of the 'Ghost Fleet' for Reviving Trump's 'Maximum Pressure' Against Iran

Iran's oil exports have significantly increased over the past four years, aided by hundreds of old, uninsured, and unofficially documented tankers known as the 'ghost fleet.' This issue is described as one of the most significant challenges facing Donald Trump, the elected President of the United States, in reviving 'maximum pressure' against Iran. Bloomberg recently provided an overview of the operations of the 'shadow fleet,' also referred to as the 'ghost fleet,' indicating that Iran uses these tankers to export its daily oil production of one million barrels. The report describes how sanctions are circumvented, stating that two tankers, while turning off their automatic identification systems to hide their locations, come close together and dock side by side. Then, one of them transfers its cargo to the other. Both tankers lack insurance or official documentation; neither the documents belong to them nor the oil cargo being transferred. This is because both tankers are part of Iran's secret fleet, known as the 'shadow fleet.' Previously, the 'United Against Nuclear Iran' organization told Radio Farda that it has identified 400 ships from the active fleet involved in the clandestine transport of Iranian oil. The oil-carrying capacity of dozens of these ships even reaches two million barrels, known as supertankers. Statistics from the energy consultancy, Vortexa, indicate that at least 190 supertankers are involved in smuggling oil from Iran and, to some extent, from Russia and Venezuela. A crucial point in this international company's assessment is that 60% of these massive tankers have not yet been sanctioned by the U.S., and this year, about 80 more supertankers worldwide will reach the age of over 18 years, which will likely be sold to the ghost fleet market as usual. Arman Azizian, a senior expert at Vortexa, told Radio Farda that Iran has exported 1.6 million barrels of oil daily this year, most of which has been delivered to China via the 'ghost fleet.' Homayoun Falakshahi, an analyst at the commodity information company (Kepler), also told Radio Farda that this year, China accounted for 94% of Iran's total oil exports, with most of this oil being delivered by the 'ghost fleet' under the name of oil from other countries, especially Malaysia, to small and independent Chinese refineries. Customs statistics from China indicate that over the past two years, not a single oil shipment from Iran has been imported directly, but this data shows a significant jump in China's oil imports from Malaysia. For instance, while Malaysia's daily oil production is only half a million barrels, last month it exported 1.8 million barrels of oil to China. Archives of China's customs statistics show that in early 2018, before the imposition of U.S. sanctions against Iran, it only bought 200,000 barrels of oil daily from Malaysia, but this figure increased year by year and peaked last month at 1.8 million barrels. A team from Bloomberg has examined satellite images of Malaysia's coasts over the past five years, one of the areas witnessing a crowd of tankers. This research revealed how the Islamic Republic circumvents U.S. sanctions and the substantial revenue resulting from it. According to this research, the volume of Iranian oil smuggling has multiplied compared to 2020, with most of these operations occurring off the eastern shores of Malaysia, near the 'Malacca Strait,' which connects the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean; a place that, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is the largest tanker passage in the world, with an average daily transit of about 23 million barrels of oil. Bloomberg estimates that, based on the number of tankers and their capacity, the volume of oil smuggled from this strait in the first nine months of this year is approximately 350 million barrels, most of which is related to Iranian oil, valued at $20 billion. Bloomberg's research team managed to reach the area where tankers anchor off the coast of Malaysia last October and photographed the transfer of oil between them. Digital data from maritime tracking websites indicates that one of the tankers that the Bloomberg team photographed, named 'Titan,' anchored near the Iranian shores in the Strait of Hormuz on September 16 and then headed toward the shores of Malaysia. According to this report, the tanker that anchored next to 'Titan' was named 'Win Win,' which departed from China's shores on September 23 and reached the cargo transfer location in Malaysian waters. Bloomberg states that smuggled oil is usually transferred in the tanker anchorage area off the Malaysian coast and is then shipped to China after falsifying special documents of the cargo's origin, which is usually Malaysia or Oman. This process allows Chinese companies to deny purchasing Iranian oil and remain safe from sanctions. The report adds that oil smuggling off the Malaysian coast represents a significant weakness in the Western sanctions system and demonstrates the difficulty of enforcing it, especially in light of the existence of other countries trying to buy and sell oil covertly. Vortexa also acknowledges that tracking tankers carrying Iranian oil has become more challenging, but it states that since 60% of these recognized tankers in the 'ghost fleet' have not been sanctioned, the U.S. can adopt a stricter policy to blacklist them entirely; a move that would significantly increase the cost of circumventing sanctions and greatly extend the delivery time of oil shipments from Iran to China.