The long wait to begin offloading a suspected Iranian cargo on a tanker seized by the US government appears to have come to an end, despite Iranian threats to retaliate against such an action.
An MR product carrier is currently alongside Empire Navigation’s 159,000-dwt Suez Rajan (built 2011) in waters off the Texas port of Galveston, according to tracking data from the Clarksons-backed Sea platform.
The apparent ship-to-ship transfer comes nearly a month after reports emerged that US authorities were struggling to find companies willing to take part in an operation to offload the controversial cargo from the suezmax.
In the end, it is another ship in the fleet of the Suez Rajan’s Greek owner that may have provided a way out.
Empire’s 50,000-dwt MR Euphrates (built 2008) pulled up to the Suez Rajan late Saturday after completing a voyage to nearby Houston, the tracking data shows.
The US Justice Department declined to comment for this story. TradeWinds also requested details from Athens-based Empire on the operation.
It is not clear whether oil transfer has begun. The transponders for both vessels were showing an essentially unchanged draught on Sunday morning.
Iran has previously threatened to take action against shipping if US authorities offload the cargo from the Suez Rajan, and last week the US Navy warned ships to steer clear of Iranian waters when transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
As TradeWinds has reported, the Suez Rajan has been anchored off Texas since late May.
That came after it emerged in April that US authorities seized the vessel while it was off Singapore or Malaysia, a move believed to have sparked Iran’s retaliatory detention of the 159,000-dwt suezmax tanker Advantage Sweet (built 2012).
The seizure occurred after it departed a Singapore anchorage where it had been waiting for a year amid a legal fight over the suspected Iranian origins of its crude cargo.
Once the oil is offloaded from the vessel, legal sources expect the Justice Department to seek a court order auctioning the seized crude.
