Iran parking millions of barrels of unsold oil on tankers
"There is no doubt there are more Iranian tankers being used for floating storage at the moment on their side of the Gulf and the feeling is this is expected to rise," said a European ship industry source with knowledge of tanker movements.
"The embargo is hurting and there has been talk of attempts by Iran to unload oil cargoes at distressed prices."
Ship industry sources gave varying estimates on how much oil Iran was storing at sea, but all said the volume was higher.
Data from maritime intelligence publisher IHS Fairplay estimated 10 of Iran's supertankers, each able to carry up to 2 million barrels of crude, were storing oil, together with one smaller tanker able to carry up to 1 million barrels.
The data showed a further two supertankers were also probably deployed on floating storage, based on the length of time they were stationary, meaning as much as 25 million barrels in total.
The vessels, all belonging to Iran's top tanker operator NITC, were located close to the Iranian oil terminals of Assaluyeh, Kharg Island and Bahregan, the data showed.
"There seem to be more vessels than there were four months ago - the big area which seems to have changed is off Assaluyeh," said Richard Hurley, a senior analyst at IHS Fairplay.
"There are more ships that seem to have come in to that anchorage in the past four months or so. At one point they were down to a core storage fleet of around six vessels anchored off Kharg Island and Assaluyeh."
NITC officials could not be reached for comment.Too bad the sanctions have had absolutely no effect on Iran's zeal for its nuclear weapons program.
Labels: Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Iranian oil
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:31 PM
1 Comments:
Iran has been storing oil in tankers in the "Persian Gulf" for many years. It is stored there, not because it has nowhere else to go, but because it will be weaponized just as soon as an attack is under way against it. They will simply blow these tankers and pollute the region and perhaps the world. They may do it serially, threatening each time that the war against them should be stopped immediately or they will blow them concurrently to obtain the greatest shock effect. These tankers are one reason that Europe and the United States, and indeed, Israel are circumspect about attacking Iran. Those tankers are Iran's Samson Option. Any plan to attack Iran must first take those takers out of the calculation by capturing them and placing them in s safe harbor, out of reach of the Iranians.
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