Tanker Tracking

As the maritime industry gathered for Singapore Maritime Week 2025, one of the industry's most important annual events, participants grappled with a central concern: the intensifying threat posed by the Iranian-backed ghost fleet. Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tension, sanctions enforcement, and growing environmental risk, the week's discussions reflected the urgency of safeguarding the integrity of global shipping.

​Updated: March 31, 2025

UANI’s Masters of the Ghost Armada: The Captains Steering Iran’s Illicit Oil Trade is a groundbreaking tool that identifies and tracks captains and chief officers serving on vessels sanctioned for illegally transporting Iranian oil. These maritime officers are not merely unsuspecting bystanders in this illicit trade.

Iranian Navy’s Visit to Malaysia Amid Renewed U.S. Pressure on Tehran 

China is principally responsible for keeping the Iranian regime in business through oil purchases that have totaled over $140 billion since President Biden assumed office in January 2021 . Four in every five barrels of exported Iranian oil go to China. This is despite U.S. sanctions that were reimposed in 2019 and maintained under the present administration, with the stated aim of reducing Iranian oil exports to zero.

The second Trump Administration has wasted no time signaling a hardline stance on Iran, kicking off what many expect to be "Maximum Pressure 2.0." A key early move was re-designating the Iranian-backed Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a step underscoring the administration’s commitment to ending attacks on U.S. personnel, allies, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea.

Updated: January 31, 2025

Updated: January 31, 2025

UANI’s final Tanker Tracker for 2024 reviews the year’s topline data points, UANI’s impact, and offers prescriptions for 2025.

Iran’s ability to sustain and increase its oil exports remains a critical factor in keeping the regime financially afloat. In 2024, despite U.S. sanctions, Iranian exports remained high, benefiting from OPEC+ cuts and the ongoing lax enforcement of sanctions. This helped the regime to bolster its economic resilience while continuing its support for human rights abuses and proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Since the brutal October 7 attack by Iran-backed Hamas, the Biden Administration has noticeably ramped up sanctions on “Ghost Fleet” tankers. As of October 28, 2024, a total of 98 tankers were sanctioned during the preceding twelve months.