Dusk

The 'Maersk Progress' has been sailing around with seized Iranian oil in its cargo for about two months now because the ownership of the oil has ended in a showdown in the courts. This ship and the tanker 'Euroforce' have therefore not yet been able to unload the more than one million barrels oil in a US port. The Iranian oil on board the two ships was confiscated by the US Department of Justice from four Greek-controlled tankers heading for Venezuela in an effort to prevent trade in oil and oil products between the two sanctioned countries. The oil been on board Maersk Progress and Euroforce since July, when the two ships entered US waters while waiting to be told where the oil was to be unloaded. But the case remained unresolved due to the lawsuits. On Sep 22, 2020, two companies claiming to own the oil asked a US judge to release the cargo, arguing that the seizure "was based on a number of unfounded assumptions". The Oman Fuel and Sohar Fuel thus pointed out that the oil on board was on its way to customers in Peru and Colombia - not Venezuela. But the US Department of Justice maintained that the fuel comes from companies with close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and that they tried to mask ownership. Therefore, the seizure was correct in relation to the US sanctions against Iran, the ministry stated in the case. The 'Euroforce', which was the first to arrive in US waters, has been off the coast of Texas for a few weeks, while the 'Maersk Progress' was off Miami, Florida on Sep 24 with Houston as its destination.