Iranian Tankers in a Tanzanian Twilight Zone?

Trying to elude the reach of U.S. sanctions, Iran’s oil tankers have put on quite a circus this year, renaming, reflagging and at times switching off their onboard vessel tracking systems to drop off the maritime grid. Now comes a further drama, fraught with mystery, in which ship-tracking databases show a growing number of Iranian oil tankers flagged to Tanzania, while Tanzanian authorities say they have no such Iranian ships registered.

The ships at the core of this conundrum belong to Iran’s main tanker company, NITC, formerly known as the National Iranian Tanker Company. This past July, the U.S. Treasury blacklisted NITC, along with 58 of its vessels, as belonging to the government of Iran. Among the blacklisted NITC vessels were more than 30 tankers which had only recently distanced themselves from looming European sanctions by reflagging from Malta and Cyprus to Tanzania and the Pacific archipelago nation of Tuvalu.

Under U.S. pressure, government authorities of both Tuvalu and Tanzania said in August that they would de-register ships blacklisted by the U.S. as owned or controlled by Iran. By mid-September, Tuvalu had done exactly that, not only de-registering more than 20 NITC tankers which had been sailing under its flag, but also de-flagging a nest of Iranian cargo ships, blacklisted by the U.S. as part of Iran’s large state merchant fleet, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL).

But what’s going on with Tanzania? Rather than de-registering the 11 NITC tankers that were already sailing under its flag, Tanzania appears to have let them stay, and added more, according to ship-tracking data from Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

Worse yet, Tanzania’s shipping registry appears to have picked up at least eight of the NITC tankers evicted last month by Tuvalu. All but one of the tankers, called the Precious, have acquired new names. The rest, known just a month or two ago in their Tuvalu-flagged incarnations as the Brawny, Truth, Mars, Noah, Castor, Panda and Blossom, are now listed by Lloyd’s as flagged to Tanzania under the new names of Marigold, Oceanic, Scorpian, Voyager, Christina, Carnation and Baikal.

Tanzania’s flag also continues to fly over more than two dozen ships blacklisted by the U.S. for their ties to Iran’s merchant fleet, IRISL, according to data on Lloyd’s. These include the Armis, Parmis and Tandis, which have recently been plying an intriguing circuit among ports in Iran, Egypt and Libya.

All told, among the ships listed by Lloyd’s as currently flagged to Tanzania are at least 44 now blackballed by the U.S. as owned or controlled either by IRISL or NITC. That would account for well over one-fifth of all Iranian ships currently on the U.S. Treasury’s blacklist of Specially Designated Nationals, widely known as the SDN list. If the shipping data is accurate, it would mean that Tanzania’s shipping register is now the world’s second-largest host, after Iran itself, to major vessels of Iran’s commercial fleet.

Queried last week about this roster of Iranian ships, a spokesperson for Tanzania’s Mission to the United Nations denied that any of them are currently flagged to Tanzania, emailing a reply that “the Capital has confirmed that the Ships in question had been de-registered since mid-August.”

This presents a puzzle, not least because the eight NITC tankers deflagged by Tuvalu in September are listed by Lloyd’s as newly flagged to Tanzania between roughly Sept. 10 and Oct. 1. That was after Tanzania officially renounced Iranian vessels in mid-August.

The mystery deepens: As recently as this past week, most of the 44 Iranian ships at issue have been using call signs that identify them as Tanzanian-registered vessels. Within just the past two days, according to data on Lloyd’s, all eight of the NITC tankers previously flagged to Tuvalu have used call signs that identify them as registered to Tanzania. While many of Iran’s ships have been sticking close to home ports, four of these tankers have been clocking in this past week from the Far East, in the vicinity of Malaysia and Indonesia, two are off India and another is off Turkey.

Tanzania’s shipping registry is managed by a company called Philtex Corporation, with a head office in Dubai, and offices in a number of other locations, including Austin, Texas, where the president of Philtex, Chris Warren, a U.S. citizen, says he is now based. Reached by phone in Texas this week, Warren described himself as a deputy registrar of the Tanzanian shipping registry, but when asked to explain the Iranian vessels he said “I did not register any of these ships.”

Warren added that he has no access to the records of these Iranian ships, and said that their apparent persistence on the Tanzanian registry might be due to a policy of waiting for a 90-day provisional registration period to expire, rather than simply striking them off. Asked how that would explain the NITC tankers showing up on Lloyd’s as newly flagged after the end of August, he said, “I don’t know exactly what is going on.” Asked why the Iranian ships at issue would be using call signs identifying them as Tanzanian, he said their use of these call signs would be “invalid.”

In response to questions emailed to the Philtex head office in Dubai, the company’s vice president and director of operations, Jocelyn Acosta, emailed back that the Iranian vessels in question “were no longer under the Tanzanian flag.”

So what’s going on? When it emerged earlier this year that Tanzania was becoming a flag of convenience for Iran, a number of U.S. lawmakers raised considerable protest. Senators Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Il.) wrote jointly to President Barack Obama, urging that the administration sanction the registry of Tanzania. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) wrote to the president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, saying that in his view Tanzania’s flagging of Iranian oil tankers “falls within the scope of sanctionable activity,” and if Tanzania did not desist, “we in the Congress would have no choice but to consider whether to continue the range of bi-lateral U.S. programs with Tanzania.”  Thus did Tanzania agree to deflag.

But now, with attention focused elsewhere, is Tanzania, as the ship-tracking data implies, still providing its flag to Iranian ships, including NITC tankers conveying the oil that sustains the Tehran regime? Or are Iranian ships abusing Tanzania’s flag, and using Tanzanian call signs that are not valid? Perhaps, with time, some clarity will emerge.

Meanwhile, although shipping databases do not right now suggest that Tanzania’s flag is disappearing from Iranian ships (if anything, the opposite), there has been quite a lot of information erased, or shifted around, on the Tanzanian shipping registry’s web site. A list of “key personnel,” which back in July listed Warren and Acosta, among others, with details of their titles and duties, now shows nothing. A list of offices, worldwide, which previously included an extensive roster of names, phone and fax numbers — in places ranging from Dubai to the Philippines, Lebanon, Egypt, India and Iran — has now been much abbreviated.

The most curious change in the web site lineup of the Tanzania Zanzibar International Register of Shipping concerns the office that was listed in July under the location, “Iran.” It named, as contact person, Masoud Zakian, of Zakian Surveyors and Loss Adjusters LLC, with two Iranian phone numbers (country code 98), and a web site, www.masoudzakian.com , which in turn included phone numbers in both Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

The same Masoud Zakian is still listed on the Tanzania registry web site, but his office appears to have migrated. “Iran” has been deleted, and instead, he is now listed as the contact person for Sharjah, in the UAE, with a UAE phone number. Similarly, another Tanzanian registry contact, Amitis Ara Shipping (web site “under construction”), which was also previously listed as located in Iran, is now listed as in Sharjah — though still with an Iranian prefix to its phone number. When I called that number, a woman answered, saying “hello” in English. When I asked her where the office was located, she hung up. Just one more of the many mysteries in the twilight zone where Iran meets the Tanzanian shipping register.