The United States has reportedly been operating a clandestine maritime oil delivery network near the Strait of Hormuz, adopting a long-standing Iran-linked strategy to keep Gulf crude flowing despite Tehran’s blockade of the strategic waterway.The operation, launched in early May, involves transferring oil between ships off the coast of Oman and the United Arab Emirates before loading it onto large tankers for export, Reuters reported, citing shipping data, satellite images and more than a dozen sources familiar with the arrangement.The report estimates that some 90 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products may have been transported through the offshore network since the beginning of May, although this figure is still well below the approximately 20 million barrels per day passing through the strait before the conflict.At least 92 vessels were involved in the operation, which relied on ships turning off their transponders and dimming their lights as they sailed; a common method used by Iran’s so-called “dark fleet” to evade sanctions and conceal the movement of cargo.The transmission network emerged during the conflict when Iran effectively closed access to the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints. The waterway typically handles about one-fifth of the world’s oil consumption.The U.S. military has coordinated surveillance, compliance screening and transit monitoring of participating ships, but there is no indication that U.S. personnel themselves were directly involved in the transfer, sources told Reuters.The action allows Gulf producers to continue exporting crude despite heightened security risks, but analysts warn the system remains fragile. “You just don’t know when Iran might decide to start using drones or even gunboats to stop these ships from passing through the strait,” said Noam Reddan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who reviewed the Reuters findings.The use of tactics previously associated with sanctioned countries has also raised concerns among foreign policy observers. “With the erosion of old rules, it is ironic that the United States is now following the lead of China, Russia, North Korea and even Iran, whose so-called ‘dark fleet’ pioneered these technologies precisely to evade U.S. and United Nations sanctions,” Michael Froman, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a report.
