Two tankers — a suezmax and a former VLCC — that have not been seen in the conventional oil transportation markets for many years have now appeared on the ship recycling beach at Alang.
Beached on 2 February after arriving at Alang on 25 January was the 153,000-dwt crude carrier Solan (built 1998), a sanctioned vessel linked by the US Department of the Treasury to the Mehdi Group in a move that has raised more than a few eyebrows in the country’s ship recycling sector.
In 2019, Mehdi was accused by the US Treasury of being part of a network of Indian and Iranian companies that facilitated the movement of sanctioned Iranian crude oil. The company and its ships were sanctioned.
Unlike many other dark fleet tankers, the Solan did not undergo a series of name and manager changes while owned by the Mehdi-linked shipowning entity, Ghad Shipping. Once sanctioned, the vessel switched to the Iranian flag and continued to trade.
According to S&P Global’s International Ships Register, the vessel was renamed Nolan earlier in January, at which time it was sold for recycling at $422 per ldt, or $9.2m. At the same time, the ship was reflagged under Saint Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles under registry provider International Maritime Registries & Regulatory Inc.
In 2024, the Dutch government, which oversees the Netherlands Antilles, said Saint Maarten has no international flag registry and that any certificates claiming a vessel is registered under such a flag are fraudulent.
The arrival of the Solan/Nolan at Alang has drawn attention in India’s ship recycling sector, as it is believed to be the first officially sanctioned vessel to be recycled in India since the US reimposed sanctions on Iran’s oil sector. This followed President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term.
Several shadow fleet tankers accused of transporting sanctioned Iranian oil cargoes have been recycled at Alang in recent years, but while these vessels were on the list maintained by pressure group United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), none had been sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
TradeWinds has previously reported that accused shadow fleet tankers fall within a grey zone in the ship recycling sector. Legally, a vessel on the UANI list can be sold for recycling, provided it has not been officially sanctioned by the US Treasury.
When sold for recycling, such shadow fleet tankers are usually sold to small, obscure cash buyers at a substantial discount to market levels.
S&P Global data indicated that the Nolan was sold to an Alang-based ship recycler at $422 per ldt, or $9.2m, which is considerably lower than the $475 per ldt, or $22.5m, paid for the 350,000-dwt floating storage and offloading vessel Takun (ex-Ta’kuntah, built 1977), which was beached earlier last week.
The Takun had been owned by a Mexican oil major for much of its working life since being converted from a conventional VLCC in 1998.
Decommissioned in 2023, the ship was sold to Indian cash buyer Lyla Trading, which market sources said was required to spend a lengthy period preparing the vessel for the tow from the Gulf of Mexico to India via the Cape of Good Hope.