Four Iranian cargo ships stranded after Brazil refuses to sell them fuel

Two Iranian cargo ships are stranded in Brazilian waters after the country’s state oil company, Petrobras, refused to provide the vessels with fuel due to US sanctions.

The vessels were carrying urea – a petrochemical product used as fertiliser – and were expected to return home with corn after refuelling.

Ship tracking data shows Panamax-type vessels Delruba and Ganj, were meant to sail the same route as two other Iranian vessels, Bavand and Termeh.

But those ships have been stranded near the Imbituba port in southern Brazil for weeks after facing similar refuelling problems.

All four vessels are owned by Tehran and are included in the sanctions imposed by the US.

If Petrobras sold the ships fuel the company could suffer penalties due to its US operations, it said.

A fifth Iranian vessel, the

Daryabar, was able to leave Brazil with corn. It also brought urea to the country and, according to Refinitiv’s Eikon ship tracking tool, is now near South Africa.

The ships were meant to ply a new commercial route opened by Tehran as it looked for new markets for its petrochemicals to compensate for lost oil sales due to the sanctions.

“The Iranian government is clearly taking a risk. They sent all those ships here without knowing if they would be able to refuel and go back,” a shipping industry source said.

Despite Petrobras saying that other companies could sell fuel to the vessels, the industry source said that was unlikely to happen because the state company effectively had a monopoly on refuelling services at Brazilian ports.

On Friday, Petrobras reaffirmed its position on refuelling the Iranian vessels.

“The risk involved in contracts with sanctioned vessels is the responsibility of the exporting company, not of Petrobras,” the company said.

Friendship, the shipping agency assisting the Iranian vessels in Brazil, declined to give information regarding the fate of the Delruba and Ganj because it was not authorised by the ships’ owners, Iranian state company Sapid Shipping, to comment.