Within the last couple of weeks; I don't remember the exact day; there was a report about covert tanks breaking sanction rules and smuggling oil out of Iran. Supposedly, the tankers were "going dark" as they approached the ports where they were being loaded with oil and would resume their standard running lights after they left the port full of oil.
Such a report means that "Iran got caught." Now, to CYA it's Iranian butt the Revolutionary Guard is claiming to capture oil tankers that are in violation of sanctions. It is political. The crew should be returned to their home and the Iranians should offload the oil back into it's oil storage facility. The real sticky issue is the owner of the tanker and answering the charges of smuggling oil. The crew is innocent and simply doing their job for the owner of the tanker.
This one incident will probably stop significant ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. It will also curtail the sale of oil from Iran. Count on a hike at the gas pump.
All parties involved need to be meeting right now at the United Nations with the Security Council.
July 18, 2019
By Bill Chappell
Iran says that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (click here) has seized a foreign-flagged oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, alleging that the ship was smuggling 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of fuel. Iranian state news outlets report that the ship had a crew of 12 aboard.
The vessel was seized south of Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. The island sits less than 20 miles off the Iranian mainland, south of the city of Bandar Abba.
Iran's military, as quoted by the semiofficial Fars news outlet, said in a statement Thursday that the tanker was on its way "to deliver the smuggled fuel received from the Iranian dhows to foreign ships in farther areas but it failed thanks to the IRGC Naval forces' vigilance."
The military says the vessel has a cargo capacity of 2 million liters — making it a small vessel when compared with supertankers that can carry 2 million barrels of oil.
