Iranian oil tankers go dark six weeks ahead of US sanctions
The disappearance of Iran’s tankers will make it increasingly difficult to monitor ship movements as the November 4 deadline looms
London — Iran’s oil tankers are starting to disappear from global satellite tracking systems with just less than six weeks to go until US sanctions are due to hit the country’s exports, making it harder to keep track of the nation’s sales. No signals have been received by shore stations or satellites from 10 of the Persian Gulf nation’s crude-oil supertankers for at least a week, according to tanker tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The most likely explanation is that the vessels’ transponders have been switched off, making it more difficult to track the their movements. When they were last seen, the 10 vessels were holding about 13-million barrels of crude and condensate, a light form of crude extracted from gas fields. If they’re now full, that would rise to about 20-million barrels. An 11th supertanker, the Deep Sea, last signaled on September 17 as the ship was heading toward the Persian Gulf from Khor Fakkan in the United Arab Emirates, showing its destination as Iran’s Khar...
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