Wharfage, payment to supplier delayed Iranian oil tanker

Tanzania Zambia Oil Pipeline (Tazama) Regional Manager, Abraham Saunyama said in Dar es Salaam yesterday that delays in offloading close to 100,000 metric tons of petroleum products since last week is a result of non payment of wharfage to TPA and the supplier.

“We also had issues with the LC which the supplier’s bank had to verify before offloading the fuel,” said Saunyama. He pointed out that because both issues have been resolved, the offloading exercise was due to start yesterday.

“We will start offloading the fuel from the ship at anytime today,” he said amid reports that the Iranian origin commodity might have faced difficulties in processing payment because of some remaining US sanctions.

“The US has still got some sanctions against Iran which are not related to the nuclear arms project, you can find out more online, all details are there,” said a US embassy official in Dar es Salaam.

In a statement posted on its website dated January 16, 2016, the US Department of Treasury said “On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union, and Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.”

The statement said on October 18, 2015, the JCPOA was adopted but it became operational on January 16 when participants began taking steps necessary to implement their JCPOA commitments.

“Today, January 16, 2016, marks Implementation Day of the JCPOA. On this historic day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, and the Secretary State has confirmed the IAEA’s verification.

As a result of Iran verifiably meeting its nuclear commitments, the United States is today lifting nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, as described in the JCPOA,” the statement added.

The statement however advised US citizens doing business with Tehran to know that the sanctions are only related to the nuclear programme and that Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had several other sanctions in place.

The statement noted that OFAC has published on its website additional information regarding actions to give effect to other JCPOA commitments, including removals from the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, the Foreign Sanctions Evaders List, and/or the Non-SDN Iran Sanctions Act List, as appropriate.

“In addition, OFAC has made available on its website a list of persons identified as blocked solely pursuant to Executive Order 13599 (“E.O. 13599 List”), which consists of persons that OFAC previously identified as meeting the definition of the Government of Iran or an Iranian financial institution.

Information regarding these changes to OFAC’s sanctions lists is available on OFAC’s Recent Actions website. This information will be published subsequently in the Federal Register,” the statement concluded.

The Zanzibar registered Iranian tanker, MT Argo which arrived at Dar es Salaam port last Thursday with 41,505 metric tons of crude oil, 38,762MT of gasoil and 9,891MT of naphtha, was supposed to offload the product over the weekend.

The sources said US dollar denominated LC issued by the Zambian government was blocked by US banks because of continuing sanctions which are related to state sponsoring of terrorism.

In an announcement dated July 12, 2012, the OFAC said, “The Office of Foreign Assets Control is issuing this advisory to alert the maritime industry that IRISL has recently been operating vessels despite their flags having been revoked.”

The advisory further said, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines has been evading international sanctions through deceptive practices which led to increased vigilance by the maritime industry and prompted an increasing number of countries to revoke or refuse to issue a flag to vessels in which IRISL or its affiliates have an interest. Mt Argo is a National Iranian Tanker Company.