A Slick Idea in the Oil Trade

Miad Maleki, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has one.

The US has imposed sanctions on some 160 shadow fleet oil tankers, 70% of which are relatively young as tankers go: less than 20 years old.

[T]he administration was reportedly considering easing sanctions on shadow-fleet vessels and allowing them to carry oil not subject to sanctions in an effort to bring down record high freight rates. Those discussions, a US official told Reuters, include the possibility of lifting sanctions on tankers “on an individual basis” so they can change hands.

Maleki’s idea is a tightening of this:

Washington should create incentives for US-aligned operators to buy ships out of Iran’s black market and put them to legitimate use in the Strait of Hormuz.

That legitimate use would be shuttling crude from within the Arabian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz into the Gulf of Oman, there to be transferred to waiting tankers for shipping forward to the oil’s final destinations.

Even just lifting the tanker sanctions on a case by case basis to facilitate each tanker’s sale to a legitimate buyer would be a very good move, but doing so to facilitate an American buyer’s purchase would make a good move much better, easing as it should, the shortage of American tankers.

And this, a bit of well-deserved schadenfreude:

Washington should open a gate and let the [Iranian] regime watch its fleet work for someone else.

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