US seizes Iranian gasoline cargoes: Update

Updates with details throughout

The US administration is celebrating victory for its tough sanctions policy after federal agents took custody of 1.16mn bl of Iranian gasoline aboard four tankers, which Washington says were transporting it to Venezuela.

The four Liberia-flagged tankers — the Bella, the Bering, the Luna and the Pandi — are owned by small Greek companies. A US federal court in July authorized the seizure based on a forfeiture complaint filed by the US Justice Department. The gasoline cargoes are valued around $55mn, using Argus' US Gulf coast export gasoline assessments.

"With the assistance of foreign partners, this seized property is now in US custody," the Justice Department said, without providing information on the current location of the vessels.

The tankers will be "going to Houston," President Donald Trump told reporters today. "Iran is not supposed to be doing that, so we seized the tankers, and we are moving them to Houston."

Washington claimed jurisdiction over the cargoes by stating that the ultimate beneficiary of such sales is Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a paramilitary group the US labels a "terrorist organization." The alleged link to the IRGC allows US prosecutors to tap counter-terrorism authorities in pursuit of Iranian cargoes.

US attorneys did not file charges against the Greek owners.

The US last September promised rewards of up to $15mn to help disrupt Iran's exports of crude and oil products. The reward is nominally for disrupting flow of funds to the IRGC, but US officials explained at the time they expect maritime market participants to take advantage of the offer to provide information on any tanker carrying Iranian cargoes.

The US administration sprang to action to disrupt further shipments of gasoline from Iran to Venezuela, after five Iranian-owned tankers delivered 1.5mn bl of gasoline and alkylate to Venezuela in May and June, catching the US by surprise. Washington casts the shipments as another example of malign activity by Tehran. But Iranian oil minister Bijam Namdar Zanganeh said at the time the shipments were commercial and more supply to Venezuela was planned.

"We are seeing more and more global shipping fleets avoiding the Iran-Venezuela trade due to our sanctions implementation and enforcement efforts," the State Department said today.

"These actions represent the government's largest-ever seizure of fuel shipments from Iran," the Justice Department said today.

The seizure is, in fact, the first successful attempt by the US authorities to confiscate Iranian cargoes since the re-imposition of a sanctions ban on all exports from Iran in May 2019 — two previous attempts failed to secure Iranian tankers at foreign ports.

The US Justice Department last year filed a forfeiture complaint against a crude oil cargo aboard Iranian tanker Adrian Darya 1, which was detained by the UK navy in Gibraltar. The Gibraltar authorities released the tanker after Iran seized the UK-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in retaliation.

The Justice Department said that Iran attempted to retaliate against the US' seizure of the cargoes by boarding fuel tanker Wila in the Gulf of Oman on 12 July, without offering proof of the connection. The US Central Command, which oversees US forces in the Middle East, publicized the incident but did not connect it to the seized cargoes. Iranian vessels boarded the Liberian-flagged Wila, but subsequently withdrew from the tanker, the Central Command said.

Separately, the US Department of Justice in May issued a forfeiture claim for the Nautic, which it said was purchased by Iran's NIOC through an intermediary. The Nautic, which was subsequently renamed Gulf Sky, was detained in April at the UAE port of Khor Fakkan, but the vessel left port in July and sailed to Iranian waters.

By Haik Gugarats