Leaking Iranian oil tanker spotted off coast of Syria

An Iranian oil tanker is spilling oil off of Syria’s coast, i24News reports. 

By World Israel News Staff

A leaking Iranian oil tanker has been spotted off the coast of Syria, i24News reports.

According to i24NEWS, it offers further “evidence that the Islamic Republic is violating U.S. sanctions on its oil trade.”

A photograph obtained from Intelli Times show what security experts have identified as a tanker with oil spilling out of it north of the coastal city of Banias, which is the site of “one of Syria’s largest oil refineries,” the report says.

EXCLUSIVE: An #Iranian tanker has been identified — by @IntelliTimes — spilling oil in front of Banias Coast off of #Syria. Was it a mechanical issue or an act of sabotage ? Report by @MatthiasInbar
📰➡https://t.co/hSlYXTMP8N pic.twitter.com/yA2PETpbKX

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) July 30, 2019

Iran isn’t allowed to export oil to Syria under E.U. sanctions forbidding oil from reaching the war-torn region.

Sanctions imposed mainly by the U.S. have had a profound negative impact on Iran’s economy. Bloomberg reports that Iran oil shipments have dropped to 750,000 barrels per day in April, down from 1.5 million in October.

On July 4, authorities in Gibraltar intercepted an Iranian supertanker that was breaching European Union sanctions by carrying a shipment of Tehran’s crude oil to war-ravaged Syria.

That vessel, too, was headed to the Banias Refinery in Syria, a government-owned facility under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad and subject to the E.U.’s Syrian Sanctions Regime.

Iran later seized a British tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran had promised to retaliate for Britain’s seizure of the Iranian tanker.

British Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt called the incident a “hostile act.”

IranIran sanctions