February 2021 Iran Tanker Tracking

Forty days into the Biden Presidency, Iran had another strong month of crude oil and gas exports, hitting just over 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), despite a slight overall drop from the previous month.

UANI’s estimate is almost forty (40) times Bloomberg’s bpd estimate but matches almost exactly TankerTrackers.com estimate of 1.399 million BPD. Although the figures show China imports dropping by more than half from January, it is likely that the decrease can largely be attributed to the “unknown destination”:

View Iran Tanker Tracking

UANI has been tracking certain ships for so long and prompting national registries to successively ‘deflag’ them as they ‘hop’ from one to the next, that some are now having to resort to unauthorized cowboy registries. 

Take the oil tanker LAKA (formerly known as ASTA, IMO 9203253) – one of the top two worst offenders.

LAKA has been illegally conducting multiple ship-to-ship (STS) transfers of Iranian crude oil and picking up crude oil from Iran’s Kharg Island.

For much of last year, LAKA was flagged by Comoros. However, after UANI showed evidence of LAKA’s rogue behavior, Comoros made the responsible decision to remove the vessel from its registry.

Then LAKA hopped over to the Cook Islands. For the past five months, therefore, UANI has been in close correspondence with Maritime Cook Islands.

Finally, on February 18, 2021, Maritime Cook Islands informed UANI that LAKA (plus another ship ETHAN) were canceled from its registry for not complying with the Flag’s requirements.  

After the Cook Islands’ decision, the vessel LAKA then hopped to the flag of Micronesia on February 21.

At this stage, it had become clear that LAKA’s owners were running out of flag options - Micronesia does not even run an international or ‘open’ ship registry, which would legally allow foreign-owned vessels to fly the Micronesian flag.  According to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, “[t]he issue of fraudulent flagging was brought to the attention of the international community in 2015, when the IMO became aware of a fraudulent registry purporting to operate on behalf of the Federated States of Micronesia.”

Indeed, the Government of Micronesia is currently involved in a criminal suit against the so-called and fraudulent “Micronesia International Ship Registry” (MISR).

So UANI wrote to the Micronesian Minister of Justice on February 24 to alert him to this issue. One day later, LAKA changed its flag yet again to the flag of Samoa.  

Like Micronesia, Samoa also has serious problems with fraudulent registries. According to the Hawaii Free Press, “Samoa attempted to establish a legal international ship registry, but contracted with a fraudulent administrator,” known as the Samoa International Maritime Authority (SIMA), but based in Thailand.

UANI has today written to the Samoan Ministry of Transportation. After Samoa, it is unclear how or whether LAKA will get another flag, which is the ‘passport’ that allows vessels to conduct international travel and make legitimate port calls. Clearly, however, it is fast running out of options.

Crucially, UANI research indicates that since November 2019, LAKA and ETHAN transported the most Iranian cargo of any foreign-flagged vessels, carrying more than 9,000,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil and gas condensates. 

Thwarting ships like LAKA has to be a priority for anyone concerned with stopping Iran's most lucrative revenue source.

Flag changes for the vessel LAKA (source: Marine Traffic)

Thus, from the smallest to the largest, flag registries worldwide are dealing with these issues daily.

Since September 2020, UANI has written seven letters to the Panama Maritime Authority (AMP) – the world’s biggest flagger - regarding over 30 vessels suspected of illicit transfers of Iranian crude oil and/or gas condensates. On February 20, 2021, AMP informed UANI that it had de-flagged the vessels YOLANDA (IMO: 9255925) and BLUE PEARL (IMO: 9192260). Both vessels were listed among 70 others in our November 2020 blog Stop the Hop. 

Since October 2020, UANI has also been corresponding with the Togolese Maritime Administration regarding the oil/chemical tanker vessel TELLUS (f/k/a ELLA IX) (IMO: 9245138). According to UANI tanker tracking data, since July 2020, TELLUS has engaged in four STS with a National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) vessel and transported over a total of 2.8 million barrels of Iranian crude oil. This information was presented to the Togolese Maritime Administration, and on February 11, 2021, the vessel was canceled from the Togolese Maritime Authority. This followed TELLUS’ completion of a STS with the NITC tanker SARAK (IMO: 9226968) on February 9, 2021. 

Finally, on February 18, 2021, ELLA IX changed its name to TELLUS and hopped from the Togo flag to Gabon. UANI presented this information to the Gabon Maritime Authority and on February 23, 2021, the Gabon Maritime Authority informed UANI that the vessel was suspended from the Gabonese Registry with immediate effect. 

Screenshot indicating flag change for the vessel ELLA IX (source: Marine Traffic)

UANI will continue to watch these vessels as long as their rogue behavior continues. We continue to call on sanctioning agencies, notably the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), to individually designate these vessels and/or their owners/operators as a complementary remedy to address ‘flag-hopping.’