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Irina Slav has been writing about global energy markets since 2007, covering the oil and gas industry, energy security, commodities, and the…

Tankers previously used to ship crude oil from sanctioned countries are now moving crude out of the Middle East, after being removed from sanction lists.

Two very large crude carriers that used to transport Venezuelan crude before are now being used to export oil from the Persian Gulf, and two more are en route to the Gulf of Oman, setting off from South America, Bloomberg reported today.

“Vessels that were blocked are being delisted or are being licensed for certain forms of financial transactions,” Benjamin Robinson, maritime attorney at Chalos & Co., said as quoted by Bloomberg. “It’s important to recognize that’s what’s going on — it’s a pretty nimble system that can be used to achieve foreign policy goals.”

The report about the four tankers follows plans announced earlier this month by the U.S. administration to bring those shadow tankers into the light, so to speak, and use them to carry unsanctioned oil. The move was motivated by sky-high freight rates for tankers due to the surge in demand from the Persian Gulf, where ship-to-ship transfers have become a regular practice. The risk of traversing Hormuz has also contributed to the freight rate surge, with some routes now fetching $40 million in freight costs alone.

“We’re going to move some of the ships from what I call the ‘bad-guy fleet’ to the ‘good-guy fleet,’” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier this month. “They will not carry sanctioned oil anymore.” Wright also said at the time that “We are converting dark tankers to legitimate tankers. There is no removing of sanctions.”

According to Wright, there were 1,600 tankers that belong to the so-called dark fleet. Meanwhile, there are not enough tankers to move unsanctioned oil. So, the Trump administration is legitimizing some of these dark-fleet tankers, with Wright estimating this could add a few dozen or even a few hundred tankers to the global unsanctioned tanker fleet.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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