US firms won’t touch Iran’s seized oil: WSJ
US federal prosecutors can’t auction off 800,000 barrels of seized Iranian oil sitting in a Greek tanker off the coast of Texas because US companies are reluctant to unload it, according to people familiar with the matter.
Prosecutors commandeered the Suez Rajan tanker carrying the oil earlier this year after charging its Greek owner with sanctions evasion, and directing the ship into the muddy-green waters 65 miles off Galveston’s coast, the Wall Street Journal wrote.
The US Coast Guard cleared the tanker for unloading, but the companies that manage those transfers — known as lightering — say they are too worried about Iranian reprisal to handle the captured oil.
“Companies with any exposure whatsoever in the Persian Gulf are literally afraid to do it,” said a Houston-based energy executive involved in the matter.
The executive said that several of the companies contacted about unloading the oil declined.
Another executive at a shipping company involved in lightering in the Gulf of Mexico also said, “I don’t know if anybody’s going to touch it.”