The Suez Rajan: The Odyssey of an Oil Tanker Caught in US-Iran Tensions

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The odyssey of the “Suez Rajan”, an oil tanker immobilized in the Gulf of Mexico for several months, seems to be coming to an end after unloading its cargo in the port of Houston. A symptomatic episode of the ambivalence of Washington, which expresses its interest in paving the way for a new nuclear agreement while continuing its policy of sanctions against Tehran.

Started eighteen months ago, the saga of the tanker Suez Rajan seems to have found the beginning of an epilogue. In the absence of an end point, so much the destiny of the ship found itself bogged down in the tensions between the United States and Iran. Immobilized by the headwinds blown by Washington, between application of the sanctions that the first imposes on the oil of the second, fears of reprisals and attempts to resurrect the Vienna agreement on Iranian nuclear power (JCPOA). All this, while Tehran has been exporting a record number of barrels in recent weeks.

In February 2022, the American organization United Against Nuclear Iran accuse le Suez Rajan, a ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands, of having used “multiple deceptive maneuvers to transport Iranian crude”. The tanker would have recovered its cargo via a transhipment from the Virgo, a tanker which had filled its tanks a few days earlier at an oil terminal on the island of Kharg, the main export channel for Iranian oil, in the Persian Gulf. .

For months, the ship remains in the South China Sea, off Singapore. Until April, when it suddenly sets sail

2023-09-05 05:51:00


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