As part of our campaign to disrupt Tehran’s oil sales revenue, UANI has launched a new resource, the Iran Tanker Tracker. This comprehensively tracks exports of Iranian oil through our ship-tracking methodology dating back to April 2018.  In addition to our monthly Iran Tanker Tracking Blogs, the new resource provides a comparison of where Iran’s oil exports were pre-JCPOA, during the JCPOA, and post-JCPOA.  


As predicted, Ebrahim Raisi is the incoming president of the Islamic Republic. There are a few things we learned from the election that particularly stand out.

On June 18, 2021, Iran will hold a presidential election that will be anything but free and fair. This has been the case in all prior elections, as the Islamic Republic is a republic in name only. Iranian elections exist to benefit the ruling regime, which vests final decision making powers on all affairs of state in the hands of an authoritarian Supreme Leader, by creating an approved channel for the citizenry to experience the trappings of democratic participation and choice that does not threaten its grip on authority.

The last time the White House Press Secretary affirmed President Biden’s pledge to get a “longer, stronger” nuclear deal with Iran was 112 days ago.

The two rhetorical pillars of President Biden’s Iran strategy are a “longer, stronger” deal and “mutual compliance.”  The 135 State Department press briefings between January 26 and June 4 reveal that senior officials have uttered these two phrases more than 100 times.

Preliminary data suggests that Iran’s exports of crude oil and gas condensates dropped from 1.2 million to 900,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) in May.  Maritime entities appear to have played their part. In the wake of UANI’s Stop the Hop 2.0 blog on April 16, which highlighted a fleet of 100+ suspect tankers, numerous flag, insurance and classification authorities have stepped up and taken action on many of these identified vessels.

Kleiss & Co

In June 2016 and March 2017, Kleiss ordered and purchased US-origin extruded butyl sealants, valued at approximately $20,951, on behalf of an Iranian customer without the required authorisation. The first shipment was halted by a US freight-forwarder, which informed Kleiss that such shipments to Iran were restricted due to US sanctions. In September 2017, Kleiss’ second attempt to export the sealants was successful after declaring that the UAE was the ultimate destination, and removing all references to Iran from the export documentation.

It appears that many classification societies – which certify a vessel’s seaworthiness – are starting to heed last year’s official guidance on maritime malpractice and sanctions.

The EU-funded Europe-Iran Forum (EIF), which finally took place last month, was mired in controversy well before it began. Just days before its original due-date last December, Iran executed a high-profile dissident journalist, Ruhollah Zam. This didn’t look good for the European attendees. The EU’s own Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell, the headline act, slunk out with his tail between his legs.

In April, Iran exported almost 500,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) to China. However, our revised figures for the previous month show it managed to export almost 1 million bpd. What accounts for this steep 50% drop? The answer is not due to any reduction in Beijing’s appetite for Iranian crude - far from it. In large measure, the explanation is logistics.