Over a dozen US-sanctioned Iranian crude oil tankers which were keeping station outside the territorial waters of Sri Lanka near the Port of Galle for over a month have dispersed, navigating further into international waters, The Sunday Morning learns.
Many of the 16 tankers which were off Sri Lankan waters began to disperse on Wednesday (26), and as of Friday (28) afternoon, around 11 were steaming in a north-westerly direction in the Laccadive Sea.
The move has broken the formation of the long picket line they held for weeks off Galle in Sri Lankan waters. Open-source ship tracking platforms such as MarineTraffic indicate the dispersal of the so-called ‘dark fleet’ of Iran’s crude oil transport merchant fleet, with the tankers moving away from Sri Lanka.
Last week, The Sunday Morning reported exclusively about 16 Iranian-flagged Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) tankers which are under sanctions by the US Department of the Treasury, idling at the edge of Sri Lankan waters off the southwestern coast.
When contacted, Deputy Minister of Ports and Civil Aviation Janitha Ruwan Kodithuwakku told The Sunday Morning last week 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.
He claimed that the Government was yet to receive information from the US through official channels. This, despite the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)-sanctioned vessels list being readily accessible online.
Authorities in Colombo remained tight-lipped about the vessels and the potential risk which bunker suppliers and their banks ran by supplying such sanctioned vessels.
The 16 Iranian tankers, which were suspected of conducting ship-to-ship transfer of crude oil to buyers off the Eastern Outer Port Limits (EOPL) off Malaysia’s southern state of Johor before arriving outside Sri Lankan waters, are being closely monitored by the United States. The US Navy has moved to intercept three Iranian-flagged tankers in southern international waters off Sri Lanka over the last few months.