transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:05] Iran's oil industry has been under harsh sanctions for nearly a decade, and the US imposes penalties on any countries that buy it. And yet, Iran has found a way to keep selling its oil, primarily through a massive underground network. The so-called shadow fleet of ships.

Speaker 2:
[00:25] Tankers designed specifically to evade monitoring and sanctions.

Speaker 3:
[00:29] Well, for Iran, this network has become a critical tool to keep its oil revenues flowing.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] After the US and Israel attacked Iran, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, preventing other Middle Eastern countries from exporting their oil. But Iran has continued allowing this ghost fleet safe passage. How important is this for the Iranian regime in its survival?

Speaker 4:
[00:53] I don't think that Iran could have fought this war necessarily without the billions and billions of dollars it's received, the equivalent of dollars it's received from these oil sales over the years. So this is a significant chunk of cash for Iran annually and it's a vital lifeline for the country.

Speaker 1:
[01:16] That is until last week. After peace talks collapsed, Trump announced a naval blockade on Iran's Gulf ports in an attempt to shut down its ghost fleet. Our colleague Rory Jones covers how money flows around the world and how the blockade is impacting this underground network.

Speaker 4:
[01:39] Iran and countries like Russia and Venezuela that have been sanctioned, they've used this shadow fleet of tankers to move sanctioned oil around the world. What the US blockade has demonstrated is that quite easily you can use force to disrupt that entire operation and the threat of force even, because you don't necessarily even have to intercept ships to do that. You just have to create a sense of fear that the US will.

Speaker 1:
[02:12] Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Ryan Knutson. It's Wednesday, April 22nd. Coming up on the show, the ghost fleet that's funding Iran's war efforts.

Speaker 5:
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Speaker 1:
[03:16] During President Trump's first term in office, he pulled out of the nuclear deal the Obama administration had struck with Iran and imposed what he called a maximum pressure campaign in hopes of getting Iran to give up on its nuclear ambitions. Here's then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Speaker 6:
[03:32] We have an obligation to put maximum pressure on the regime's ability to generate and move money, and we will do so.

Speaker 4:
[03:41] And what it aims to do is reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. So we want to cut that financial lifeline, which makes up a huge chunk of Iran's annual budget.

Speaker 1:
[03:54] The US threatened to hit any buyers of Iran's oil with sanctions, effectively drying up the country's customer base.

Speaker 4:
[04:01] So you had countries in Europe and in Asia buying, you know, US allies buying Iranian oil before that. But they all then left the room, and only really one significant buyer emerged, and that was China.

Speaker 1:
[04:17] Now, China buys 80 to 90% of Iran's oil. One reason is there isn't much competition for it, making it much cheaper. Another reason is because China doesn't exactly agree with the US's sanctions policy.

Speaker 4:
[04:32] China's position on US sanctions is that they don't support them, and they think that they're a unilateral move by the US, and that's US policy, and that they don't have to enforce US sanctions. For China, it's also geopolitical. China has a far deeper relationship with Iran than just buying its oil. Because Iran has been under US sanctions for a very long time, it's had to create out these alternative trade networks with countries that are friendlier towards it. And China is one of them, and so it buys a lot of goods from China. China builds a lot of infrastructure in Iran, so there's a deep trade relationship there. And China saw the opportunity not only to get cheap oil, but to help a friend, and at the same time, undermine US interests.

Speaker 1:
[05:29] China's official position is that it doesn't import Iranian oil. China's customs authorities haven't reported any crude imports from Iran from 2023 onward. Instead, China seems to be working with Iran to disguise its purchases.

Speaker 4:
[05:44] They don't out of the say we are importing Iranian oil in opposition to US policy. And so what the obfuscation and disguising of the Iranian oil does is it gives China the plausible deniability, the ability to say we are importing Malaysian oil or Omani oil.

Speaker 1:
[06:03] Walk me through how Iran gets its oil to China through this ghost fleet. How does this ghost fleet operate?

Speaker 4:
[06:11] The ghost fleet, Iran pumps out crude oil and that oil is then loaded onto ships. One particular Iranian ship that might be part of the ghost fleet of tankers, it would get loaded with Iranian crude and move from the Persian Gulf, where it's picked up Iranian crude, and then it might go to the Gulf of Oman, to the middle of the sea, and at that point, it might turn off a tracking system that it's supposed to have on the tanker that reports its whereabouts, and at that point, maybe you might see another ship tidal up to the first ship, and you would see the crude move between the different ships, and that's called a ship-to-ship transfer. And so that second ship might trundle along all the way to Asia, and it gets to in and around Malaysia and Singapore, and then another ship-to-ship transfer might happen, and a smaller ship would then move that crude oil to a Chinese port where it would be refined. It's all about trying to obfuscate where this crude has come from.

Speaker 1:
[07:24] It sounds pretty sneaky.

Speaker 4:
[07:25] Yeah, it's clever as well as sneaky, I'd say.

Speaker 1:
[07:31] It's estimated that there are more than 500 ships that make up the shadow fleet that serves Iran, according to one analyst group. And Iran isn't the only country that uses the shadow fleet to avoid sanctions. Russia, Venezuela, and other countries also have their own versions of the same system. Together, analysts estimate that there is a global shadow fleet of more than a thousand mostly aging ships that all use the same techniques to hide their movements. Like turning off location transponders and frequently changing a vessel's name and flag. Who owns the shadow fleet? It's certainly not just one company or one country.

Speaker 4:
[08:08] No, that's absolutely right. Yeah, it's difficult to track, in essence, because a lot of the ownership structures of these tankers are opaque. There are reports by US think tanks that there's a Chinese-connected company that owns a fleet of tankers. And so the individuals and companies benefiting from the fleet is often difficult to trace.

Speaker 1:
[08:33] Underpinning this fleet is a complex system of front companies.

Speaker 4:
[08:38] So Iranian shell companies that are leasing these ships, they might create fake invoices showing that the oil comes from somewhere else like Malaysia or Oman. And so what you have is this complicated dance where these tankers are involved in moving the oil. And at the same time, there's a bunch of shell companies and middlemen that are all trying to disguise where this oil is coming from.

Speaker 1:
[09:05] Is it a well-oiled machine, this shadow fleet? Or are there often hiccups in this process?

Speaker 4:
[09:14] Well, I think based on how much Iran's been able to sell, you'd argue it is a pretty well-oiled machine. But we have seen that there have been occasional hiccups. The US actually indicted some individuals and companies involved in moving sanctioned Iranian oil. And you can see in those indictments, it's not always a smooth ride for these tankers.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] Getting oil out of Iran and onto these shadow tankers is only part of the process, though. There are still several steps before Iran can turn that oil into money. How they do that is next.

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Speaker 1:
[11:10] When Iran's oil gets to China, China's major oil companies don't want to deal with it. Those companies have international operations and are wary of running afoul of US sanctions. So, like the shadow fleet of ships, there's also something of a shadow network of Chinese oil refineries called teapots.

Speaker 4:
[11:30] So the teapots are a set of refineries based, largely based in one province in northeastern China called Shandong.

Speaker 1:
[11:41] And are they called teapots because they are short and stout? And when they get all steamed up, you can hear them shout?

Speaker 4:
[11:48] Yeah, you could hear them shout. Yeah. I mean, I'm not 100% sure myself.

Speaker 1:
[11:54] The answer, in fact, is because they are smaller and shorter than a traditional refinery. And in recent years, those teapots have ramped up how much oil they process.

Speaker 4:
[12:04] That amount of oil that teapots could take in was determined by government quotas. And so what happened over time is you saw the government increase the quotas for these teapots to import Iranian oil. And what that meant is that more oil moved from the state-owned giants, who essentially exited the market, along with Western countries and Asian nations that were buying Iranian oil. And these private teapot refineries took over, essentially.

Speaker 1:
[12:38] After it goes to the teapots and gets refined, where does it go from there? Just into the broader Chinese market?

Speaker 4:
[12:44] The oil could go into the broader Chinese market. Some of these teapot refineries are part of other conglomerates, or have relationships with other businesses in China, so that the crude then gets refined and then moves into some other version of petrochemicals or... moves into plastics, or it shifts along that chain there.

Speaker 1:
[13:09] Finally, there's the money. And like with the fleet and the refineries, there's also a shadow banking system, too.

Speaker 4:
[13:16] There's these small Chinese banks that are more willing to open accounts for Iranian shell companies and front companies to receive oil proceeds that then can move on to other parts of the world. And those smaller banks are more willing to set up those accounts and risk facilitating Iranian money flows because they aren't really connected in the same way as bigger Chinese banks to the international financial system.

Speaker 1:
[13:51] In some cases, proceeds from the oil sales are sent directly to Chinese construction companies, who take the money as payment for building infrastructure in Iran.

Speaker 4:
[13:59] So there's this barter system that means that money never even has to touch the international financial system and be overseen by the US. One of the other things it could do is it gets paid for the oil in a bank account in China and then it could use that money to procure things in China that Iranian imports need. So it might buy chemicals or jewel-use materials that are used to produce weapons and then they are shipped from China to Iran.

Speaker 1:
[14:37] The US estimates that Iran makes tens of billions of dollars per year from selling its oil to China. This is why the US started imposing that blockade, targeting Iran's shadow fleet. The idea is to throw a wrench in the whole system.

Speaker 4:
[14:55] That was what happened initially and then the US has gone even further and said that it is willing to block any Iranian exports anywhere in the world on any kind of ship. And so that's really like stepped up the enforcement.

Speaker 8:
[15:08] A US naval destroyer firing on an Iranian cargo ship Sunday, blowing a hole in its engine room, President Trump said.

Speaker 4:
[15:17] And all of that is designed to put economic pressure on Iran and to force it into a deal. A deal to end the war, to negotiate its nuclear program, and other ways in which the US wants to curtail Iran.

Speaker 1:
[15:36] So how effective is this blockade?

Speaker 4:
[15:39] The blockade, at least for now, is ensuring that Iran can't export oil, and therefore it loses access to its financial lifeline. So it's proving to create economic pressure on Iran.

Speaker 1:
[15:57] President Trump has extended the ceasefire, but said the blockade would continue. Iran, meanwhile, says it won't negotiate unless the US lifts the blockade. Negotiations between the US and Iran seem to have stalled. Talks were supposed to resume this week in Pakistan, but neither side sent its delegation. While the US blockade has had an impact on the shadow fleet, it isn't perfect. According to a cargo tracking company and brokers arranging such cargo, more than two dozen Iranian-linked ships carrying oil and gas have been able to evade it. The whole situation has revealed just how powerful the shadow network is and how difficult it might be to permanently put an end to.

Speaker 4:
[16:41] I think that it ties into this broader idea about whether the world moves away from a U.S.-led financial system in a sense. China has been creating these alternative payment systems that essentially cut out the U.S.-led financial system entirely. And Russia has been doing the same, and the setup of the shadow fleet was trying to just avoid any kind of US oversight. And so what you might just see as a result of all of this is that there is this push by these countries, this anti-U.S. block led by countries like China and Russia and Iran, to create systems that cut out the US entirely, and cut out the US dollar, and so mean that there's less oversight by Washington of what countries around the world are doing.

Speaker 1:
[17:52] That's all for today, Wednesday, April 22nd. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Shelby Holliday, Austin Ramsey and Brian Spiegel. Thanks for listening, see you tomorrow.

Speaker 9:
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