Iranian VLCC Turns Around After Assad’s Fall
A tanker carrying Iranian oil to Syria turned round in the Red Sea to head away from its original destination after the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, according to ship tracking data.
The Suezmax tanker Lotus, carrying around 1 million barrels of Iranian oil, turned around just before the Suez Canal on Dec. 8 to start sailing southbound in the Red Sea, according to maritime data analytics firm Kpler.
Tanker Trackers, another ship tracking source, also reported Lotus' turnaround in the Red Sea.
The Iran-flagged tanker, laden with crude loaded on Iran’s Kharg Island, was sailing southbound in the Red Sea off Egypt, and was not signalling a new destination, according to Kpler.
Syria had been relying on Iran’s crude exports to run its two oil refineries, as the country’s local crude production mostly stopped after the civil war that erupted over a decade ago.
Iran has sent nearly 19 million barrels of crude to Syria in 2024 to date, comprising one to four tanker shipments per month to the Syrian port of Baniyas, Kpler data showed.