Key facts
- Iran International reported Iran has used oil terminals and storage in China despite U.S. sanctions.
- Letters cited by Iran International show instructions to use shadow fleet vessels to keep trade with China alive.
- Hamid Bovard wrote that Iran's Foreign Ministry negotiated buying port facilities and oil terminals in China.
- Iran bought control of port facilities at three locations in China and stakes in Shandong docks, per ministry sources.
- Ali Khamenei and Ali Shamkhani were killed in the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February 2026.
- Kpler's Homayoun Falakshahi said no more Iranian oil is left to discharge to China.
Iran International reported on November 9, a Monday, that Iran has been using oil terminals and storage facilities in China to ship its oil to its biggest buyer and keep sanctioned tankers operating despite U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil exports. The outlet cited top-level confidential correspondence of former Iranian leaders.
According to the letters obtained by Iran International, Ali Shamkhani, a political adviser to the former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, wrote to Hamid Bovard, the former head of the National Iranian Oil Company and acting oil minister as of early October, that Iranian authorities had instructed intermediaries to continue using shadow fleet vessels to keep trade with China alive. Bovard wrote in the correspondence that the Iranian Foreign Ministry had negotiated buying port facilities and oil terminals in China to establish a hub for sanctioned Iranian crude. Iran has also moved to secure long-term leases on large oil storage facilities in several Chinese locations.
The arrangement saw sanctioned vessels controlled by Hossein Shamkhani, son of Ali Shamkhani, transport Iranian oil to terminals and storage facilities Iran controls in China. Iran has bought control of port facilities at three locations in China and stakes in docks in Shandong province, the home of independent Chinese refiners, according to sources at the Iranian Oil Ministry cited by Iran International.
Both Ali Khamenei and Ali Shamkhani were killed during the first U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February 2026.
Iran publicly remains defiant and claims it will find ways to dodge the U.S. blockade. Vessel-tracking services have estimated that Iran's oil exports have plunged since August 2026, and Iranian oil in floating storage has also been drained amid the U.S. Navy blockade, according to Iran International.
Kpler's head of crude oil analysis, Homayoun Falakshahi, said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal last month: "There's no more oil to discharge to China anymore."