Iran holding tanker over a dispute on oil operations

Iran is holding a tanker as a bargaining chip on behalf of a company' involved in a dispute over an oil shipment, a group which monitors Tehran's efforts to evade sanctions has said.

United Against Nuclear Iran (Uani) said it was “highly likely” the Niovi had been seized on the direct orders of the regime and is being held after a subsidiary of Turkey's ASB group claimed a shipment of its oil was sold to a third party without its consent.

The Niovi was seized on May 3 and had previously been shipping crude for ASB, which was hit with US sanctions after being accused of facilitating the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars of oil for the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Panama-flagged ship was intercepted by the IRGC’s naval forces in the Arabian Gulf at dawn on the basis of a court order obtained in Tehran, Iran's Mizam news agency reported at the time, though it provided no further details.

It had left a dry dock in Dubai bound for Fujairah and was not carrying any cargo. Video footage showed Iranian speedboats surrounding the tanker.

The seizure of the Niovi came after that of another tanker, the Advantage Sweet, on April 27 as it travelled in the Gulf of Oman.

Photos from Planet Labs PBC showed the Advantage Sweet and the Niovi anchored to the south of the port city of Bandar Abbas near a naval base in Hormozgan province.