{"id":20935,"date":"2018-11-03T09:23:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T09:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20935"},"modified":"2018-11-03T09:23:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T09:23:01","slug":"iran-tankers-go-dark-to-keep-selling-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20935","title":{"rendered":"Iran tankers go dark to keep selling oil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEHRAN: Working from their small offices in Stockholm, analysts at a new watchdog that monitors global oil shipments have been run ragged by Iran\u2019s efforts to skirt US sanctions this month.
In late October, every single one of Iran\u2019s vessels \u201cwent dark,\u201d switching off their transponders to avoid international tracking systems \u2014 a first since TankerTrackers.com began operating in 2016.
The ships can now only be tracked manually using satellite imagery.
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen a blanket black-out. It\u2019s very unique,\u201d co-founder Samir Madani told AFP.
It is part of efforts by Iran and its customers to keep oil flowing ahead of a new US embargo set to hit on Monday.
\u201cIran has around 30 vessels in the Gulf area, so the past 10 days have been very tricky, but it hasn\u2019t slowed us down. We are keeping watch visually,\u201d added co-founder Lisa Ward.
Huge improvements in commercially available satellite imagery in recent years have allowed firms like TankerTrackers to watch the progress of vessels on a daily basis, where once images would have come only once a week or more.
Iran hopes less transparency will allow it to keep selling oil after November 5 when the United States reimposes the last set of sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal, which Washington abandoned in May.
But Joel Hancock, from analysis firm Natixis, said this did not mean their sales would necessarily remain high.
\u201cThe main issue with tanker trackers is they are tracking exports, maybe not sales,\u201d he told AFP, adding that the ships could just be moving oil to storage facilities in China or elsewhere.
Another method \u2014 used during the last sanctions period between 2010 and 2015 \u2014 is to keep oil on huge tankers off the Gulf Coast.
TankerTrackers says there are currently six vessels, with a total of 11 million barrels of capacity, parked offshore as floating storage containers \u2014 freeing up port capacity and allowing for quick deliveries.
Although precise figures are rarely available in the notoriously opaque oil market, most analysts say Iran\u2019s exports dropped from around 2.5 million barrels per day in April to roughly 1.6 million in October.
Countries with close security and trade ties with the US were quick to cut their purchases \u2014 South Korea went almost straight to zero, with Japan and much of Europe close behind.
Although the European Union has vowed to create a \u201cspecial purpose vehicle\u201d (SPV) to protect companies buying oil, analysts see little chance that firms will risk US penalties by using it.
\u201cThe SPV is currently dead in the water. It can\u2019t handle oil in any serious volume,\u201d said Henry Rome, a specialist on Iran sanctions for the Washington-based Eurasia Group consultancy.
The US granted waivers to eight countries but only on condition they make substantial cuts to their purchases.
But the trickiest customers for the US in its \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign are the biggest buyers, India and China.
China, the largest buyer of Iranian oil, has been surprisingly willing to play ball with sanctions so far, in part because it has bigger fish to fry in the form of its ongoing trade war with Washington.
During the last sanctions period, China funneled almost all its Iranian transactions through the Bank of Kunlun, controlled by Chinese state energy group CNPC, which was sanctioned by the US in 2012 but shielded the rest of the sector from penalties.
\u201cKunlun was a sacrificial lamb in the past… but Chinese banks appear to have realized the immense risk and are a lot more cautious,\u201d said Rome.
Unconfirmed reports suggested this month that the Bank of Kunlun was quietly halting transactions with Iran.
But China is likely to seek new paths to keep the oil flowing, according to Rome.
\u201cIt looks like they\u2019ll open another channel, maybe another bank, and keep importing sizable amounts, but there\u2019s still a lot to work out,\u201d he said.
India, another major buyer, will also be looking for mechanisms as they did during the last sanctions period.
\u201cThe difference last time was that sanctions were phased in gradually over a long period,\u201d said Rome.
\u201cThere\u2019s a certain panic this time that they are being required to make very substantial reductions immediately, and also that banking systems are much more intertwined than in the past.\u201d
Even if Iran can continue to sneak oil out of its ports, it will find it difficult to get the cash into its accounts.
\u201cIran is a formidable adversary, well practiced in different techniques to keep selling oil and muddle the data, but that won\u2019t be a panacea for everything,\u201d said Rome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEHRAN: Working from their small offices in Stockholm, analysts at a new watchdog that monitors global oil shipments have been run ragged by Iran\u2019s efforts to skirt US sanctions this month.In late October, every single one of Iran\u2019s vessels \u201cwent dark,\u201d switching off their transponders to avoid international tracking systems \u2014 a first since TankerTrackers.com…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}