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Oil Smuggling In Iran
Oil smuggling in Iran is driven by factors like international sanctions on Iranian crude and steep fuel price differences with neighboring countries. These conditions have spawned a thriving illicit trade in both crude oil and refined fuels. Smuggling operations range from small-scale overland fuel trafficking to sophisticated global schemes involving tanker fleets. Oil smuggling has economic impacts and geopolitical implications. Recent trends and statistics Despite U.S. sanctions, Iran's crude oil exports have surged in 2022-2023, largely through covert channels. Estimates by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicate Iran earned about $53–54 billion annually from oil exports in 2022 and 2023. Volume-wise, Iran's exports averaged roughly 1.4 million barrels per day in 2023, the highest since 2018. United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a monitoring group, tracked 533 million barrels exported in 2023, up 27% from 420 million in 2022. China is the dominant buyer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Sanctions Against Iran
There have been a number of international sanctions against Iran imposed by a number of countries, especially the United States, and international entities. Iran was the most sanctioned country in the world until it was surpassed by Russia, following Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022. The first sanctions were imposed by the United States in November 1979,Haidar, J.I., 2017Sanctions and Exports Deflection: Evidence from Iran," Economic Policy (Oxford University Press), April 2017, Vol. 32(90), pp. 319-355. after a group of radical students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took hostages. These sanctions were lifted in January 1981 after the hostages were released, but they were reimposed by the United States in 1987 in response to Iran's actions from 1981 to 1987 against the U.S. and vessels of other countries in the Persian Gulf and US claims of Iranian support for terrorism. The sanctions were expanded in 1995 to include firms dealing with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the Iraq–Kuwait border, southeast, Jordan to Iraq–Jordan border, the southwest, and Syria to Iraq–Syria border, the west. The country covers an area of and has Demographics of Iraq, a population of over 46 million, making it the List of countries by area, 58th largest country by area and the List of countries by population, 31st most populous in the world. Baghdad, home to over 8 million people, is the capital city and the List of largest cities of Iraq, largest in the country. Starting in the 6th millennium BC, the fertile plains between Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, referred to as Mesopotamia, fostered the rise of early cities, civilisations, and empires including Sumer, Akkadian Empire, Akkad, and Assyria. Known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mazut
Mazut () is a low-quality heavy fuel oil, used in power plants and similar applications in Iran and some countries of the former Soviet Union. In the West, through fluid catalytic cracking, mazut is distilled into diesel and other light distillates. Mazut may be used for heating houses in some parts of the former USSR and in countries of the Far East that do not have the facilities to blend or break it down into more conventional petro-chemicals. Mazut is burned in Iran to compensate for the shortage of natural gas but it has caused environmental problems, such as huge amounts of air pollution in big cities such as Tehran. Oil spills involving Mazut have unique harmful effects on marine environment as the fuel-oil solidifies at 25°C and sinks to the ocean floor making it impossible to chemically remediate. On the 15th December 2024, two oil-tankers crashed in the Kerch Strait resulting in 5,000 tonnes of Mazut entering the environment known as the 2024 Black Sea oil spill. A s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malaysia
Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula and East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Peninsular Malaysia shares land and maritime Malaysia–Thailand border, borders with Thailand, as well as maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia; East Malaysia shares land borders with Brunei and Indonesia, and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. Kuala Lumpur is the country's national capital, List of cities and towns in Malaysia by population, largest city, and the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia, legislative branch of the Government of Malaysia, federal government, while Putrajaya is the federal administrative capi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to the south; Zambia to the southwest; and Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. According to a 2024 estimate, Tanzania has a population of around 67.5 million, making it the most populous country located entirely south of the equator. Many important hominid fossils have been found in Tanzania. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included South Cushitic languages, Southern Cushitic speakers similar to modern day Iraqw people who moved south from present-day Ethiopia; Eastern Cushitic people who moved into Tanzania from north of Lake Turkana about 2,000 and 4,000 years ago; and the Southern Nilotic languages, Southern Nilotes, including the Datooga people, Datoog, who originated fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panama
Panama, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half of the country's over million inhabitants. Before the arrival of Spanish Empire, Spanish colonists in the 16th century, Panama was inhabited by a number of different Indigenous peoples of Panama, indigenous tribes. It Independence Act of Panama, broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia, a union of Viceroyalty of New Granada, Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela. After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada eventually became the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iran's Ghost Fleet
Iran's ghost fleet refers to a network of oil tankers, shell companies, and covert logistical operations used by the Islamic Republic of Iran to secretly export oil in defiance of international sanctions, primarily those imposed by the United States. The fleet plays a central role in sustaining Iran’s sanctioned economy, particularly in funding the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its foreign operations. Background Following the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions after Washington’s 2018 withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran turned to covert oil exports to maintain its revenues. With the formal energy sector increasingly isolated from global markets, Iran constructed a clandestine supply chain supported by hundreds of maritime vessels operating under false identities, with manipulated tracking systems and fraudulent documentation. Structure and operations The ghost fleet consists of vessels with obscured ownership, often registered unde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined petroleum, crude oil from its point of extraction to oil refinery, refineries. Product tankers, generally much smaller, are designed to move refined products from refineries to points near consuming markets. Oil tankers are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from inland or coastal tankers of a few thousand metric tons of deadweight tonnage, deadweight (DWT) to ultra-large crude carriers (ULCCs) of . Tankers move approximately of oil every year.UNCTAD 2006, p. 4. Second only to pipeline transport, pipelines in terms of efficiency,Huber, 2001: 211. the average cost of transport of crude oil by tanker amounts to only US. Some specialized types of oil tankers have evolved. On ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was established in London in 1851 by Paul Reuter. The Thomson Corporation of Canada acquired the agency in a 2008 corporate merger, resulting in the formation of the Thomson Reuters Corporation. In December 2024, Reuters was ranked as the 27th most visited news site in the world, with over 105 million monthly readers. History 19th century Paul Julius Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions of 1848. These publications brought much attention to Reuter, who in 1850 developed a prototype news service in Aachen using homing pigeons and electric telegraphy from 1851 on, in order to transmit messages between Brussels and Aachen, in what today is Aa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurds In Iran
Kurds in Iran (, ) constitute a large minority in the country with a population of around 9 and 10 million people. Most Iranian Kurds are bilingual in Kurdish and Persian. Geography Iranian Kurdistan or Eastern Kurdistan ('), refers to the parts of western Iran inhabited by Kurds which borders Iraq and Turkey.''Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland'', (2014), by Ofra Bengio, University of Texas Press It includes the Kurdistan province, Kermanshah province, West Azerbaijan province, Ilam province, and Lorestan province. Shia Feyli Kurds inhabit Kermanshah province, except for those parts where people are Jaff, and Ilam province; as well as some parts of Kurdistan and Hamadan provinces. The Kurds of Khorasan, in the North Khorasan province of northeastern Iran, are Shi'ite Muslims. The Lak tribe populate parts of Ilam province and Lorestan province, while Chegini Kurds reside in central Lorestan. Religion The two major religions among Kurds in Ir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Van Province
Van Province (, , Armenian: Վանի մարզ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Anatolian region of Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. Its area is 20,921 km2, and its population is 1,128,749 (2022). Its adjacent provinces are Bitlis to the west, Siirt to the southwest, Şırnak and Hakkâri to the south, and Ağrı to the north. The capital of the province is the city of Van, with a population of 525,016 at the end of 2022. The second-largest city is Erciş, with 92,945 inhabitants at end 2022. The province was part of ancient province of Vaspurakan and is considered to be one of the cradles of Armenian civilization. Before the Armenian genocide, Van Province was one of the six Armenian vilayets. A majority of the population of the province is Kurdish. Demographics The province is mainly populated by Kurds and considered part of Turkish Kurdistan. The province had a significant Christian Armenian population until the genocide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
