• US has not notified SL about sanctions list, claims Dep. Min.
• Sanctioned tankers keep station off Galle Port, just outside 12 nmi limit
• Concerns over offshore support services and their banks violating US sanctions
• Tankers being closely monitored: Defence official

Sri Lankan entities that offer services to US-sanctioned vessels and banks which enable such activities may run the risk of backlash by the global power, with Sri Lanka yet to warn local entities about the risks, while the Ministry of Ports and Shipping awaits notification about sanctions from the US authorities, The Sunday Morning learns.

This, as over a dozen – 16 by our last count – Iranian-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) tankers idle at the edge of Sri Lankan waters for weeks, some for over a month.

A senior official attached to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) told The Sunday Morning that despite requests for a policy brief and guidelines from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on how to instruct private offshore support services based out of Sri Lankan ports on dealing with requests from such US-sanctioned vessels, clear instructions were yet to be received.

Anyone who sets sail from Colombo and heads south will notice a line of large vessels dotting the coast from Hikkaduwa to Habaraduwa. Many mariners and vessels who call at the Colombo Port have wondered why the vessels remain just beyond the horizon and do not enter port.

For over a month, over a dozen large crude oil carriers have been arriving off the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka, hovering just outside the 12 nautical mile (nmi) territorial boundary of Sri Lankan waters near the Port of Galle. 

As of Friday (21) afternoon, The Sunday Morning tracked 16 Iranian-flagged tankers station-keeping in a picket line formation off the Port of Galle using open-source ship tracking platforms. Such tankers are suspected of moving Iranian oil to buyers around the world in breach of US sanctions, while some breach United Nations (UN) sanctions.

These giant 333-metre-long behemoths are suspected to be part of Iran’s ‘dark fleet’ and are under sanctions by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The US OFAC has a list of vessels, aircraft, companies, persons, and assets which are sanctioned, and is readily accessible to the public.

Responding to a question, Deputy Minister of Ports and Civil Aviation Janitha Ruwan Kodithuwakku told The Sunday Morning that the Iranian tankers remained outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters and acknowledged that any private companies that provided them services and banks which enabled such actions ran the risk of US sanctions.

“We don’t have a means of knowing which vessels are sanctioned by the US Government. Our Director General of Merchant Shipping only received sanctions lists from the UN. If the US, through its mission in Colombo, informs us via the Foreign Ministry, we can list those vessels as sanctioned. However, we have not been notified as such through the Foreign Ministry. If we get a notification, we can issue a warning to local suppliers at our ports that those vessels are sanctioned. We can act if we are notified officially and then warn the local parties,” Kodithuwakku told The Sunday Morning.

When asked if private companies based off the Galle Port were replenishing the 16 tankers, some of which have been idling off Galle since mid-July, Galle Port Resident Manager K.A.K.N.W. Weerasinghe declined to comment.

A senior defence official told The Sunday Morning that the Sri Lanka Navy had been monitoring the vessels closely through Maritime Domain Awareness systems, but needed direction from the Government to do anything else. “As they are outside our territorial waters, there is little we can do from a security standpoint,” he opined, but warned that the US Navy had boarded several such tankers in international waters south of Sri Lanka and commandeered the vessels as they were under sanction.

He added: “Let’s hope nothing like that happens off Galle. What if the Iranians have orders to resist? If there is a firefight, we may have a tanker fire like that of the MT New Diamond in 2020 or worse, and a crude oil spill. We don’t have the capacity to deal with a crude oil spill offshore. We will need help like last time.”

According to Charlie Brown, Senior Adviser to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a nonprofit and non-partisan policy organisation, and Director of Southeast Asia Regional Programmes at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies (YCAPS), many of the sanctioned Iranian tankers may be biding their time, waiting for the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian ports to become accessible. 

“They are here loitering after conducting ship-to-ship transfer of oil in the Malaysian Eastern Outer Port Limits (EOPL). They would normally return to Iran, but due to the blockade, they are not attempting to return and therefore are loitering until they can return. It is unlikely that they will conduct Ship-to-Ship (STS) transfers near Sri Lanka. The US blockade is preventing any tankers from departing Iranian waters. So, in the end, they are waiting for the US blockade to be lifted at some point,” Brown opined.

“Companies providing logistics support to these ships are risking secondary sanctions by the US OFAC,” he noted, when asked if Sri Lankan companies ran the risk of sanctions if they supplied them. Brown stated that some tankers, such as the MT Amber – IMO number 9357406 – had arrived off Galle Port anchorage on 16 July, over a month ago.

Attempts to contact the SLPA Chairman regarding the issue failed. SLPA Managing Director Ganaka Hemachandra thanked The Sunday Morning for the information about the tankers but directed us to speak to the Harbour Master about services offered to them. The SLPA Harbour Master was not reachable for comment. Multiple attempts to contact the Director General of Merchant Shipping also failed. 

Attempts to contact Minister of Foreign Affairs Vijitha Herath and Deputy Minister Arun Hemachandra on the topic proved futile. The Sunday Morning also reached out to the US Embassy to find out if Washington had informed Colombo about the sanctioned vessels and was yet to receive a response at the time of going to print.