A line of empty Iranian-flagged oil tankers has been sitting just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters off Galle for several weeks, unable to return home because of the United States naval blockade of Iranian ports.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that at least 13 Iranian tankers were waiting off the Sri Lankan coast for the blockade to end, citing vessel-monitoring data. The paper quoted the tracking firm TankerTrackers as putting around 20 vessels linked to Iranian state entities inside Sri Lanka’s Exclusive Economic Zone. All of them are in ballast — carrying no cargo.
What the trackers counted
The advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran, which publishes vessel-by-vessel shipping updates, listed 17 empty Iran-flagged tankers anchored off Galle on August 20 and named each one: HERO II, SILVIA I, SEA CLIFF, SNOW, HELM, DIAMOND II, DEEP SEA, DUNE, DINO I, SONIA I, HERBY, SEVIN, AMBER, HENNA, FELICITY, HUGE and DORE.
The differing figures reflect different counting dates and boundaries — vessels anchored off Galle are a subset of those inside the wider Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the coast. The numbers have also moved: reports put the cluster at seven in early August and 12 by mid-month.
According to UANI, the tankers left the Malaysian Eastern Outer Port Limits empty after transferring Iranian crude ship-to-ship, and are now scattered across Indo-Pacific anchorages instead of sailing back to Iran to reload.
A problem outside Sri Lankan jurisdiction
LankaNewsWeb reported on Monday that 17 very large crude carriers were station-keeping beyond the 12-nautical-mile territorial limit near Galle, some stationary since mid-July and visible from the coast between Hikkaduwa and Habaraduwa. The vessels are suspected of belonging to Iran’s sanctioned “dark fleet”.
Because the ships sit outside territorial waters, the Sri Lanka Navy has little legal authority to board or remove them. A senior defence official told the outlet the Navy was tracking the vessels through Maritime Domain Awareness systems but would need government direction to act.
The same official warned that a boarding operation or fire involving a laden crude carrier could produce an oil spill beyond Sri Lanka’s response capacity, citing the 2020 MT New Diamond tanker fire, when the country required foreign assistance.
Charlie Brown, a senior adviser at UANI, said there was no evidence the vessels intended to conduct ship-to-ship transfers near Sri Lanka.
Colombo’s response
Sri Lanka’s Ports Ministry said it was not aware of the accumulation of Iranian tankers off the country’s coastline, according to the Financial Times report. The Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
The US resumed its blockade of Iranian ports in mid-July. Washington says its navy has detained 71 merchant ships linked to Iran since then, disabled three and boarded two more, as of August 24. Earlier this month it announced further economic pressure measures, including action against countries that continue certain trade with Tehran.
Among the verified Sri Lankan newsrooms LankaNewz tracks — Ada Derana, Daily Mirror, NewsFirst, Hiru News and EconomyNext — none had published its own account of the Galle anchorage when this article was filed on Wednesday morning.
