US military copied Iran's smuggling tactics to move Gulf oil, report reveals
The US military has secretly coordinated the transfer of an estimated 90 million barrels of Gulf oil since May, adopting Iran’s own sanctions-evasion tactics to covertly move the oil, a recent Reuters investigation revealed.
Two specific locations where the oil transfers take place were identified by 11 people familiar with the operation, which at least 92 ships have been involved, according to shipping data and satellite imagery.
The ship-to-ship transfer operations, a shuttling technique long used by Iran to skirt sanctions, are fully controlled by the US military, said eight of the sources, including someone involved in the transfers.
Tankers must sail to a meeting point before they reach the strait, then stagger their departures so they are around 3,000 to 4,000 metres apart. Their transponders are off, and their lights are dimmed, sources say.
When they pass through the strait, just beyond a zone that Iran has delineated as under its control, the tankers pull alongside the recipient ships, which are Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, to begin the oil transfers. These take between 24 and 40 hours to complete. The empty tankers then shuttle back through the strait, and the newly loaded VLCCs sail onward.
What makes this ship-to-ship operation possible is that there are a few shippers willing to sail their vessels through the strait to deliver the oil to the waiting tankers, despite the Iranian blockade.
This technique has been used by Iran for years to bypass sanctions, because it masks the source of the oil. The Iranians usually operate one pair of ships at a time, both to avoid detection and because their prewar exports were relatively small.
The US-led operation, which involves mass transfers, gives Gulf producers better protection from Iranian retaliatory attacks so they can move crude, condensate and petroleum products to international buyers.
Based on the imagery, Reuters calculated that at least 90 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products may have moved through the offshore network since early May.