TANKERS involved in a vital hub of the Iran-to-China oil trade are disappearing from digital tracking systems, as the threat of US sanctions forces tactical changes to keep crude flowing.
Over recent months, more vessels have started switching off their transponders as they near waters off eastern Malaysia, a hotspot for the transfer of Iranian oil from one to ship to another for transport to China. Previously, systems were rarely disabled, signaling when tankers anchored next to each other.
While the tactic of going dark is not new, it’s being used more regularly off Malaysia to avoid scrutiny. The White House says the Iranian oil trade generates revenue that supports Tehran-backed militia groups including Hamas, and has sought to hobble flows through sanctions on ships, ports and refiners.
“Ship-to-ship transfers have been used to mask the origin of those cargoes,” said Muyu Xu, a senior crude oil analyst at Kpler in Singapore. “Now they’re switching signals off for longer, so that it’s now even harder trace those flows back to the source, which is Iran.”
A recent example is the Vani, an unsanctioned very large crude carrier that was built in 2004 and has the capacity to carry 2 million barrels. The empty vessel signaled its position off eastern Malaysia on May 15, before going dark then and reappearing fully laden in the region five days later, according to ship-tracking compiled by Bloomberg.
While Vani was missing from digital tracking systems, the tanker conducted a ship-to-ship transfer on May 18 with the Nora, a US-sanctioned vessel that had collected Iranian crude from the Kharg Island export terminal, according to Kpler and Vortexa. Vani is now signaling Qingdao in China as its destination, data from the two analytics companies show.
Avani Lines Inc., based in the Marshall Islands and the registered owner of Vani, doesn’t have a listed phone number or email address for contact on the Maritime Portal run by S&P Global Inc.
China’s independent refiners are the biggest buyers of Iranian crude, attracted to the discounted barrels because they help buffer typically razor thin margins. While official Chinese data shows the nation hasn’t imported oil from the OPEC producer since 2022, third-party figures signal robust flows.
China imported around 1.46 million barrels a day from Iran last month, down from a five-month high in March, according to Kpler. Flows started to slip late last year but have since recovered. Other methods being used to keep the Iran-to-China trade in business include the use of zombie ships — vessels that take on the identities of scrapped tankers to appear legitimate.
In April, at least six ship-to-ship transfers off Malaysia were conducted with vessels that had disabled their transponders, including one with the Celine, a US-sanctioned ship, that had loaded Iranian oil from Kharg Island, according to Kpler. In the same month last year, only one tanker went dark.
Ships can be identified conducting oil transfers by analyzing satellite imagery, but the process is labor intensive and picture quality depends on the weather. It requires matching tankers to photos of vessels with known identities, a method that needs more time and can be prone to human error.
“It’s getting more and more difficult to track those sanctioned flows,” Emma Li, senior market analyst at intelligence firm Vortexa Ltd., said during a client presentation in Singapore in early April attended by Bloomberg News. –BLOOMBERG
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