Tehran’s oil minister, Bijan Zangeneh, recently boasted that Iranian oil exports have increased despite US attempts to block them with sanctions and threats against potential buyers.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the US is trying to seize the contents of an oil tanker it believes to be carrying Iranian oil in violation of US economic sanctions targeting the country’s petroleum exports.

According to the report, the Achilleas is fully loaded with 2 million barrels – as much oil as Iran produces in an entire day – that it picked up from another ship in Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, in November 2020.

Earlier this week, Indonesia seized two oil tankers off the island of Batam, near Singapore, on suspicion of oil smuggling. Authorities said they caught the vessels “red-handed” transferring oil. Iran’s PressTV reported that Tehran believed the Iranian-flagged tanker, the MT Horse, was seized over a “technical issue” and has asked for an explanation from Jakarta. The other vessel was the MT Freya, a Panamanian-flagged ship owned by a Shanghai company.

After a group of Iranian tankers slipped through a similar US blockade around Venezuela to deliver much-needed fuel, Washington stepped up its interdiction efforts and began seizing ships suspected of transporting Iranian oil or of intending to deliver refined petroleum products to Venezuela.

Both Biden and leaders in Tehran have indicated their willingness to return to the JCPOA treaty, which would lower economic sanctions in exchange for tight limits on the quantity and quality of uranium that Iran could refine, limiting its use to a handful of nuclear power plants and medicinal purposes.

Iran’s oil production has halved since 2018 and US sanctions have greatly frustrated the republic’s ability to acquire products such as medicine and to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, despite previous claims by the Trump administration that the sanctions would not affect those key health issues.

Sourse: sputniknews.com

US Reportedly Looking to Seize Tanker Suspected of Carrying Iranian Petroleum

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