The US national security community is monitoring a former aframax tanker that recently emerged as the largest vessel in the Iranian navy fleet — and is believed to be heading for Venezuela.
The ship’s main role, according to Iranian military officials, is to provide support for the country’s commercial shipping fleet in waters that are proving increasingly hostile.
The US authorities are concerned that Iran wants to strut its military might in its backyard.
For the shipping industry, it is yet another lesson on how the opaqueness that blankets so many ships makes it very easy for them to be sold to sanctioned entities.
The 105,000-dwt Makran (built 2010) is billed as a forward base ship, capable of carrying out multiple roles from providing logistics capabilities offshore to deploying special forces, conducting search and rescue missions, transporting and operating missile systems, as well as delivering relief supplies and medicines.
The ship carries helicopters, drones and fast boats, and is equippedto replenish naval vessels operating far from Iran’s naval bases.
Not bad for a vessel that until last year was just an ordinary crude oil tanker.
Checkered past
The ship was built as the Al Buhaira for Sharjah-based FAL Shipping. Financial problems saw the ship sold off by 2013 to a Liberian-registered entity, Al Buhaira International Shipping
IHS indicates the vessel, renamed Beta, was part of a group of former FAL tankers owned by anonymous brass-plate companies that collectively, and with regularity, transferred operations and control between small United Arab Emirates-based ship managers that popped up out of nowhere to manage them, and then disappeared shortly after the vessels moved on to a new manager.
The Beta was managed at first by Fujairah-based Ionian Ship Management before moving over to Venous Ships Management in 2014.
In August 2016, Indian seafarers on the Beta contacted the International Transport Workers' Federation claiming they had not been paid for three months, had lost contact with the vessel’s manager and were running low on provisions and fuel.
The four-year-old vessel, which had been anchored off Khor Fakkan for about two years, was described as being in very poor condition. Lloyd’s Register suspended classification in March 2015 and withdrew it entirely in February 2016. No transfer of class was declared.
The Liberian flag withdrew registration services in May 2016, with a spokesperson revealing that there had been previous issues with crew abandonment.
Crews on the other tankers managed by Venous faced similar problems.
All nine tankers under Venous' control moved across to new managers in October 2016.
The Beta, together with three other modern aframaxes, sailed over to HELD Maritime Shipping of Dubai. The rest went to managers in the UAE and India.
Tanker brokers claimed to be at a loss as to what the tankers did under these managers.
“They certainly weren’t trading in the open markets. It is my understanding that they have spent most of their time at anchor doing nothing at all,” said one Dubai-based tanker broking source.
Their ownership was widely rumoured in Dubai’s shipping community to still lie with former FAL shareholders.
Aframaxes on the move
The aframaxes began disappearing from HELD’s fleet in June 2020, when the 97,000-dwt Al-Nouf (built 2010) was sold to Aria Seaway of Liberia.
Renamed Lila Dubai, it currently trades in the fleet of Dubai-based tanker and bulker operator Lila Global.
The Beta turned up in the fleet of the Iranian navy in August 2020 to begin its conversion into the warship Makran.
The 100,000-dwt Al Khalidia (built 2009) was sold to Czar Shipping in November 2020, becoming the Victory 1. Ownership was transferred again in March to Marshall Island-registered Olden Berg Shipping, which renamed it Mare under the management of Nordships Maritime, a Mumbai-based company incorporated only in February.
The 105,000-dwt City Elite (built 2010), remains as the last tanker under HELD control, according to IHS Markit. Its status is unknown and in several shipping databases it has no class or flag indicated.
The City Elite last put out an AIS signal in November 2018, when it was anchored off Khor Fakkan.
HELD could not be reached for comment as its listed phone number has been disconnected.
