TEHRAN – A tanker carrying Iranian fuel oil unloaded the nearly 130,000-ton cargo into storage tanks near the Chinese city of Zhoushan, Reuters reported on Thursday citing ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon.

Reuters reported on March 20 that some Iranian fuel oil had managed to evade the United States’ sanctions on petroleum exports by using ship-to-ship transfers involving four different ships, including the Marshal Z.

Iranian oil industry has been under pressure from the U.S. efforts to isolate the country by reimposing sanctions. The new round of sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector were put in action on November 4, 2018.

The unloading of the fuel oil comes less than two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration announced that Washington has decided not to extend waivers allowing major importers to continue buying oil from Iran. The waivers ended on May 2.

Earlier this month, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Amir-Hossein Zamaninia said Iran is mobilizing all its resources to sell its oil in a gray market, countering unjust and illegitimate U.S. sanctions.
“This is not smuggling. This is countering sanctions which we do not see as just or legitimate”, Zamaninia said in a conference held at the Islamic Azad University of Tehran.

EF/MA