A tanker chartered by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is loading Venezuelan crude for export, documents from state-run PDVSA show, providing evidence of the two countries’ latest tactics to expand their trade in defiance of US sanctions.
Venezuela and Iran have deepened their cooperation this year as Venezuela has exchanged gold and other commodities for Iranian food, condensate and fuel.
Names of scrapped vessels are being used by several PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.) customers, including NIOC, to disguise the routes and identities of the tankers they use.
A very large crude carrier (VLCC), identified in PDVSA’s loading documents as the Ndros, arrived at Venezuela’s main oil port of Jose last week to load 1.9 million barrels of heavy Merey 16 crude bound for Asia, the documents showed.
Vessel-monitoring service TankerTrackers.com used satellite photos to show the Ndros was scrapped in 2018, confirming reports on international shipping databases.
Also using satellite imagery and comparing it with photographs, it said the VLCC’s real identity is the Liberia-flagged Calliop. Reuters could not independently verify that as the tanker’s name at the hull had been painted black before its arrival at Jose.
PDVSA, Venezuela’s oil ministry and NIOC did not respond to requests for comment. The US Treasury Department declined to comment.
Hong Kong-based Ship Management Services Ltd, which bought the Calliop in October, the shipping databases showed, could not be reached for comment.
A spokesperson for the US State Department said that “reports of any impending deliveries would again illustrate the illegitimate regime in Venezuela has turned to international pariahs like Iran to enable their exploitation of Venezuela’s natural resources.”
Iran sent a VLCC named the Horse to Venezuela in September. It delivered condensate, a very light form of oil, for PDVSA to blend with its very heavy oil to formulate exportable crude.
The tanker returned to Iran in October carrying Venezuelan heavy oil for NIOC, PDVSA’s schedules showed. The tanker was misidentified at PDVSA’s databases as the Master Honey.
In the run-up to leaving office in January, US President Donald Trump’s administration has tightened sanctions on Iran and Venezuela.
A handful of PDVSA’s customers that had been allowed to swap Venezuelan oil for fuel under US sanctions had their authorizations suspended in October. But Washington has not intercepted vessels that contribute to the Iran-Venezuela trade.
Smaller Iranian tankers have also delivered gasoline to Venezuela, making several voyages between the two countries since May.
The US Department of Justice in August seized 1.1 million barrels of Iranian gasoline bound for Venezuela on four privately-owned tankers.
The cargoes were transferred to two separate tankers that delivered the gasoline to US ports for auction, in what the department said led to the largest seizure of Iranian fuel.
Iran uses disguised tanker to export Venezuelan oil — documents
https://arab.news/yzjex
Iran uses disguised tanker to export Venezuelan oil — documents
- Names of scrapped vessels being used to disguise routes and identities of tankers
- Venezuela and Iran have deepened their cooperation this year
Trump urges Iranian Kurds to attack Iran as war widens
- Azerbaijan preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday
- The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka
DUBAI/WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened, with Azerbaijan warning it would retaliate for being targeted by Iranian missiles.
Israel on Friday said it had started a “broad-scale” wave of attacks against infrastructure targets in Tehran, as Gulf cities came under renewed bombardment by Iran.
The seven-day war has now seen Iran target Israel, the Gulf states, Cyprus, Turkiye and Azerbaijan, and spread to the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka where a US submarine sank an Iranian naval ship.
On the possibility of the Iranian Kurdish forces entering Iran, Trump told Reuters on Thursday: “I think it’s wonderful that they want to do that, I’d be all for it.”
Two Iranian drone attacks targeted an Iranian opposition camp in Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, security sources said.
Iranian Kurdish militias have consulted with the United States in recent days about whether, and how, to attack Iran’s security forces in the western part of the country, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.
The Iranian Kurdish coalition of groups based on the Iran-Iraq border in the semi-autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan has been training to mount such an attack in hopes of weakening the country’s military, as the United States and Israel pound Iranian targets with bombs and missiles. Trump, speaking with Reuters in a telephone interview, also said the United States must have a role in deciding who will be the next leader of Iran after airstrikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last week.
“We’re going to have to choose that person along with Iran. We’re going to have to choose that person,” he said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday that the US was not expanding its military objectives in Iran, despite what Trump said about choosing the country’s next leader.
“There’s no expansion in our objectives. We know exactly what we’re trying to achieve,” he said. The attack on Iran is a major political gamble for the Republican president, with opinion polls showing little support and Americans concerned about the rise in gasoline prices caused by disruption to energy supplies. Trump dismissed that concern. Shares on Wall Street fell on Thursday, weighed by surging oil prices, as the economic impact of the campaign intensified, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global supplies of oil and liquefied natural gas and air transport still facing chaos and global logistics increasingly snarled.
Azerbaijan prepares to retaliate
Azerbaijan was preparing unspecified retaliatory measures on Thursday after it said four Iranian drones crossed its border and injured four people in the Nakhchivan exclave.
“We will not tolerate this unprovoked act of terror and aggression against Azerbaijan,” President Ilham Aliyev told a meeting of his Security Council.
Iran, which has a significant Azeri minority, denied it targeted its neighbor.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia warned Israeli residents to evacuate towns within 5 km (3 miles) of the border between the countries in a message posted on its Telegram channel in Hebrew early on Friday.
“Your military’s aggression against Lebanese sovereignty and safe citizens, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the expulsion campaign it is carrying out will not go unchallenged,” Hezbollah said.
Us munitions full
Hegseth and Admiral Brad Cooper, who leads US forces in the Middle East, said during a briefing about operations that the US has enough munitions to continue its bombardment indefinitely.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth told reporters at Central Command headquarters in Florida. “Our munitions are full up and our will is ironclad.”
The Pentagon earlier this week said the military campaign, known as Operation Epic Fury, is focused on destroying Iran’s offensive missiles, missile production and navy, while not allowing Tehran to have a nuclear weapon.
Cooper said the US had now hit at least 30 Iranian ships, including a large drone carrier that he said was the size of a World War Two aircraft carrier.
He added that B-2 bombers had in the past few hours dropped dozens of 2,000 penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic missile launchers, and that bombings were also targeting Iran’s missile production facilities.
Iran’s ballistic missile attacks had decreased by 90 percent since the first day of the war, while drone attacks had decreased by 83 percent in that time frame, he said. In Iran, at least 1,230 people have been killed, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, including 175 schoolgirls and staff killed at a primary school in Minab in the country’s south on the first day of the war. Another 77 have been killed in Lebanon, its Health Ministry says. Thousands fled southern Beirut on Thursday after Israel warned residents to leave.
