Reuters exclusive: Tanker unloads Iranian fuel oil at China port after near five-month trek

Reuters reported exclusively that a tanker carrying Iranian fuel oil in violation of U.S. sanctions has unloaded the cargo into storage tanks near the Chinese city of Zhoushan, according to ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon. The discharging of the nearly 130,000 tonnes of Iranian fuel oil onboard the tanker, the Marshal Z, marks the end of an odyssey for the cargo that began four months ago. Reuters reported on March 20 that some Iranian fuel oil had managed to evade the United States’ sanctions on petroleum exports by using ship-to-ship transfers involving four different ships, including the Marshal Z, and by using forged documents that masked the cargoes as originating from Iraq.