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Page added on October 20, 2018
How Iran is using ‘ghost ships’ to flout Donald Trump’s oil sanctions
It sounds like something out of a pirate story, but the normally staid world of international trade has been beset by a flotilla of ghost ships in recent weeks, and they’re weighed down by several million barrels of trouble for U.S. foreign policy.
Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil suppliers, and according to official records, the country shipped about 1.8 million barrels of oil per day last month, a slight decline from August’s level and 40 per cent below a peak of almost 3 million barrels in April.
All things being equal, that figure is likely to plunge even more in the coming weeks, as U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to negotiate a new nuclear agreement are set to come into force next month. If fully implemented and adhered to, the sanctions will cut Iran’s oil exports to zero as long as the rest of the world plays along.
But the Iranian government seems to already have found innovative ways around those efforts by moving millions of barrels of crude on the sly.
People who monitor global tanker traffic noticed a curious new development last month, as about a dozen tankers known to be carrying Iranian oil mysteriously turned off transponders designed to track their movements via GPS.
Under an international law known as the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, ship captains must keep their transponders — known as Automatic Identification System or AIS — on at all times. But sometimes vessels wishing to move about without as much scrutiny will turn them off, and so far the international community doesn’t seem too interested in stopping them
Iran has lately become a hub for the tactic. And the journey of one ship, the Dino I, is a good example of how it works.
On Sept. 4, AIS data shows that the supertanker picked up 2 million barrels of Iranian oil at Kharg Island, a massive fill-up station in the middle of the Persian Gulf. From there, the ship made its way through the Strait of Hormuz and into the Indian Ocean, where the ship went dark from Sept. 15 onward.
It reappeared on the grid more than ten days later while passing through the busy shipping lanes near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and its transponder stayed on while it paid a visit to the shipping hub of Singapore a day later, on Sept. 27.
Then it vanished again for more than a week, before reappearing off the coast of Taiwan on Oct. 5. It then went dark for another few days before checking in off the South Korean coast and delivering its cargo at the Chinese port of Dalian on Oct. 13.
Dino I is not the only such “ghost ship,” as experts have called them, and the eyebrow-raising voyage seems part of a targeted attempt to evade the coming sanctions.
“They think they’ll throw people off the scent [and] they want to confuse what they’re picking up,” says David Adesnik, research director at Washington, D.C.-based national security think-tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, of what the ships are up to.
“We’re still puzzling through their precise motives,” he says, “but broadly speaking, it’s about the money.”
The threat of Iran being locked out of the oil market has pushed up oil prices in recent weeks. So deploying an armada of cloaked tankers allows Tehran’s leaders to have their cake and eat it too by selling just as much oil as ever.
Oil prices have risen steadily in recent weeks ahead of sanctions that will theoretically lock Iranian crude out of the market. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)
“They’re doing it more because they embraced the media narrative that exports are down hard,” says Samir Madani, co-founder of ship monitoring firm TankerTrackers.com. “It helps boost the price of oil. They don’t want OPEC to go into higher production,” he says. OPEC refers to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, a producers’ cartel that includes Iran as a member.
In the first 13 days of October, TankerTrackers calculated that Iran shipped an average 2.2 million barrels per day. That’s an increase of 10 per cent from what the company was seeing in September, and several hundred thousand barrels more than what’s being reported in the official numbers from OPEC.
Madani’s firm supplements rudimentary AIS data with other technology to fill in the gaps, and he estimates that official numbers sometimes only capture about 20 per cent of the tanker traffic at any given time. “The other 80 per cent is a cat and mouse chase involving satellite imagery,” he says.
This isn’t the first time that Iran has tried such chicanery. Iranian ghost ships last criss-crossed the seas to this extent between 2011 and 2015, when the previous U.S. administration had sanctions on Iranian oil before signing the nuclear deal that the current inhabitant of the White House pulled out of.
It’s not just oil destined to feed China’s voracious appetite for fuel, either. Madani says Syria and Israel “both instruct tanker operators to switch off their transponders prior to arrival.” Officially, there are U.S. sanctions on selling oil to Syria, but Iran shipped up to 60,000 barrels per day to Syria in August, worth some $150 million, TankerTrackers says.
In Israel’s case, tanker operators bringing oil from Arab states who don’t have relations with Israel will turnoff the tracking devices to keep up appearances that they aren’t “dealing with the Jewish state,” Adesnik says.
Ghost ships aren’t the only type of subterfuge currently at play in the oil market. Madani has noticed a marked uptick in the amount of barrels that Iran is storing in idle tankers. That’s a great way for the regime to get oil off of its official ledgers, until it can find a buyer on the sly in future, he says.
On the last day of September, for example, Madani’s satellites witnessed 10 million barrels sitting in six supertankers floating just offshore of Kharg Island. They hadn’t moved in days, nor did they move for several days following.
The red dots represent oil tankers spotted by TankerTrackers.com holding as many as 2 million barrels of oil on Sept. 30. The yellow dots represent smaller tankers that were holding a million barrels. (TankerTrackers.com)
That’s more than 10 per cent of all the oil the world consumes every day, just floating around, looking for a buyer — possibly one who’s willing to do business even after U.S. sanctions are in place next month.
“It would seem to be practice,” Adesnik says. “They’ll really need the cloaking after November 4, but they’re practicing with it now.”
The risk isn’t only financial. In January, Iranian tanker the Sanchi burned and sank in waters 300 kilometres east of Shanghai after colliding with a freight ship. The Sanchi was carrying about a million barrels of condensate at the time, and all 32 members of the crew are missing and presumed dead. Rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that the Sanchi hadn’t broadcast an AIS signal for at least nine hours prior to the collision, Adesnik says.
More than 30 people who were on board the Sanchi when it exploded and sank in Chinese waters earlier this year are presumed dead. (10th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters/Reuters)
Tragedies like the Sanchi are likely to repeat for as long as the international community is willing to turn a blind eye to the shipping subterfuge. Tehran has an incentive to keep doing it and “authoritarian regimes are not known for their ability to confront the truth in an expeditious manner” Adesnik says.
“I’d imagine we’re interested in taking some pretty serious measures to prevent them from getting oil out illicitly,” he says. “But we have to prioritize who we’re going to be pressuring into compliance.”
16 Comments on "How Iran is using ‘ghost ships’ to flout Donald Trump’s oil sanctions"
dave thompson on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 6:37 pm
The oil will be bought and sold,sanctions be damned.
Anonymouse1 on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 6:48 pm
‘Donald Trumps’* sanctions, are flat-out illegal. The only nation the uS should be able to order to not buy Irans products, should be its own dumbass serfs or its ‘own’ corporations.
Something is drastically wrong with the state of the world, when the one self-appointed hegemon, can impose it will in this manner. Iran has no need to resort to subterfuge to sell its oil on world markets, it is perfectly free to do so, and breaks no ‘law’ by doing so.
*Us propaganda should know better. These sanctions, have been a feature of the uS regime for 30 years. The current moron-in-chief, is simply giving his (unnecessary) endorsement to the long held policy of the UNelected, and UNaccountable, deep-state towards Iran. The uS’s real rulers do not require the ‘presidents’ approval for what they do, but I’m certain they do appreciate his boundless enthusiasm and wholehearted support for their actions in this matter.
makati1 on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 7:24 pm
Anon, the empire has no teeth. It has not won a war in 100 years. Never will. It has nothing to back up its threats anymore. The world is turning away from the terrorist US.
I would post a few refs to prove my point, but those who know what I am saying is true will not need them and those who deny will not believe or even read them. (sorry for the rhyme lol)
boney joe on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 7:59 pm
Donald Trump attempting to impose his will on other nations through threats….. one would think the autonomous nations of the world would tire of playing the shuck and jive game of “yesum master”.
Cloggie on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 10:47 pm
“the empire has no teeth. It has not won a war in 100 years.”
It can still create immense damage whereever it sets foot, like more than six million SE-Asians killed in the Vietnam war (finally a holocaust that DID happen), more than a million killed in Iraq, 500,000 in Syria, proxy war in Yemen (DJT: 110 billion in arms sales and 600,000 jobs in the US).
How to get rid of cancer?
Europe, Russia and China are against the anti-Iran sanctions. They should team up against the US (and UK clien state) and criminalize the use of the dollar in Eurasia and withdraw from all post-1945 institutions, most of all the UN and start all over again in Eurasia… while America is falling apart over race, which is a good thing, races should live separate, without inevitable inter-ethnic tensions:
https://www.infowars.com/america-must-take-action-against-un-invasion-or-fall/
Anonymouse1 on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 10:57 pm
LoL, InfoJews.com. Still pushing that fat medicated retards shit eh, cloggenkike. Married to a jew AND the network he works for is owned by them. Small wonder you’ve been whoring for him\them here nonstop since day one. Must run in the tribe, I mean ‘family’.
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieDie on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 11:04 pm
There is too much people on earth and enough resource for us all.
Plus global cooling is coming and North America and Europe won’t have the right climate to growth food.
We need (Whites people) to get our act together and start the process of population reduction. I say we start with Black and Arab.
First step is stop selling Western technologies like electricity generation, water treatment and medication to Africa and Middle-East. After that we bombs their hospital, electrical generation station and bomb the migration route. Right there a lot of damage can be done with very few Whites people death.
Eventually we exterminate all of them and move into Africa and Middle-East and build real countries like only Whites people can do.
This is my plan, we wait, the world belongs to the stronger, not the weak, fuck leftards
Cloggie on Sat, 20th Oct 2018 11:35 pm
May may be gone next week:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6298561/Theresa-faces-trial-Tory-MPs.html
“Theresa May faces ‘show trial’ by Tory MPs as one senior plotter shockingly tells her to ‘bring your own noose’”
First contender hard-Brexiteer David Davis, whose…
“rallying cry over Brexit includes a thinly veiled threat to ban European airliners from British airspace in the case of a ‘no deal’ exit from the EU.”
Exactly my kinda guy.lol
Anything that destroys the status quo will do. A naval clash between Britain and France in the “English” channel, a civil war in the UK after 700,000 anti-Brexit demonstrators went to the streets yesterday, Scotland suddenly withdrawing from the UK, nothing is too weird, as long as it helps breaking up the West.
Cloggie on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 4:06 am
China is putting its cards on Europe, not America:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/17/china-is-investing-9-times-more-into-europe-than-into-north-america.html
“China is investing 9 times more into Europe than into North America, report reveals”
Very significant statistic if you want to predict how the battle lines in the (very near) future could look like.
My prediction: Eurasia vs Anglosphere.
Throughout history #2 and #3 conspire together against #1 in order for both to advance at the global pecking order at the cost of #1.
Like Britain and France against Germany in 1914.
Like ZOG-USA and ZOG-USSR against Europe in 1939.
And now likely PBM and China against the Anglos.
Let’s make a success of Trump, Brexit and the war on Iran.lol
Davy on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 5:42 am
“China is putting its cards on Europe, not America:”
Good, you will get to enjoy the feeling of having your economy gutted and your intellectual property stolen can copied.
Davy on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 6:24 am
“Alhambra: China’s Economy Is Not Crashing, It’s Worse Than That”
https://tinyurl.com/ya62hysr
“What that suggests is not immediate catastrophe, offering instead more complete confirmation that this major economy is slowing. Again. This is the real story in China and therefore for everywhere else. In other words, the real danger presented by these statistics is not imminent crash but rather the total disappearance of any upside potential.”
“The world economy has never recovered from the 2011 Eurodollar crisis (squeeze). The system broke in August 2007, and created all sorts of devastation immediately thereafter. But for a time in 2010 and the first half of 2011 it looked like recovery was at least possible if unusually weak.”
“Instead, time has proven beyond all doubt that 2011 was the last stand for recovery. It just isn’t possible so long as the global reserve currency, the Eurodollar not dollar, remains dysfunctional. There can never be enough momentum to escape, opportunity surrendered by this neglect.”
“China’s economy is not crashing. However, it is slowing and from an already weakened level. The Chinese system did not actually recover from the last downturn despite now three years distance. What these numbers show is that, like the Eurodollar system, there is now very little chance that it ever will. It may not seem like much compared to a full-blown breakdown, but pretty conclusive evidence for a worldwide, multi-year (decade?) “L” should be terrifying. A world without opportunity is a far more dangerous one than a world only temporarily stripped of it. The V can be scary but only on the way down. The L is, well, I think we’re going to find out.”
Davy on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 6:25 am
This article is interesting because it is making some key points that supersedes traditional binary thinking but sees the system as a whole. China is slowing and this slowing will be slowing of the whole. The article also references the Eurodollar. The Eurodollar is interesting too and little understood. Its definition is simple enough: https://tinyurl.com/y9m9mj37
“The term Eurodollar refers to U.S. dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks or at the overseas branches of American banks. By being located outside the United States, Eurodollars escape regulation”
The Eurodollar is the other global reserve currency and it is beyond the direct reach of the US authorities except in regards to crisis and liquidity. We now see the problems with the Eurodollar and the emerging markets. We are seeing global liquidity issues. The Eurodollar carries a special risk because in times of crisis it is only the Federal Reserve who can directly inject dollars into banks.
We have two key pillars of the global economy in trouble. China is the global growth engine and the Eurodollar the fuel. No they are not collapsing and likely will not because they are too big to fail. If they collapse the whole system collapses. The point of this article is there is now no upside. The article points to the other side of the curve that is systemic decline. This is systematic and it is in China and the Eurodollar most crucially now. It is everywhere along with many other risks and predicaments. We are on a gradient of decline. It does not matter if there is still growth. This growth is not upside growth. This growth is shallow fake growth that is not poised to break out into real growth with opportunity.
Cloggie on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 7:20 am
Peter Hitchens making the case for the most rational Brexit choice of them all: Norway
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-6298815/PETER-HITCHENS-Theres-one-way-escape-German-empire.html
“PETER HITCHENS: There’s only one way we can escape from the German empire…”
Typical British inflammatory title, but the article is more reasonable.
twocats on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 8:49 am
I wonder also if it isn’t the US Administration having its cake and eating it as well.
1) they get to look tough on Iran for MAGA base and the world (Mafia move)
2) causes headaches for Iran and maybe they sell at discount
3) Oil prices stay high – good for frackers.
4) But no actual shortages will appear – world economy doesn’t collapse quite yet.
twocats on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 9:13 am
davy – the alhambra article is very good – pointing to the weakness in China since 2011 and the sham of “”China as Engine of Global Growth”. the whole engine is sputtering to a halt.
the main questions now revolve around how this whole global “thing” unravels. There are so many intertwining layers – some good, some bad. the unraveling itself will be both good and bad. and the end results will have both as well. I obviously think most of it will be devastation and death on a scale never before seen. But there might be some nice moments of sitting on the beach and watching the Tsunami rise along the horizon.
Davy on Sun, 21st Oct 2018 9:40 am
Two cats I agree but timing and location are big factors and also difficult to pinpoint. We know the problems and we know the bad places to be. What we don’t know is how it will unfold. Dumb Luck will play a part. This is fascinating stuff and it is why I am here so much.