Oil, gas and Iran economic analyst
The seizure by US forces last week of an oil tanker in the Caribbean for allegedly transporting sanctioned oil from Iran and Venezuela may signal a policy shift that could endanger the funding of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran's budget for this fiscal year had given the sprawling paramilitary body new economic power by tasking it with selling nearly 600,000 barrels of oil per day to fund military expenditures.
The dramatic raid by Washington, which is the latest move in an escalating pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, now puts the shadowy trade buoying targeted economies in Caracas and Tehran in the crosshairs.
“The seizure underscores Washington’s escalating efforts to crack down on dark-fleet activity tied to Iranian and Venezuelan crude trades,” analytics firm Kpler said in a research note.
The Guyana-flagged ship, called Skipper, had loaded crude earlier this year at Iran’s Kharg Island terminal and has frequently shuttled between Venezuela, Iran and China—a top customer for the sanctioned powers.
Kpler notes that Skipper has been repeatedly linked to sanction-evasion tactics, including spoofing its location and mislabeled Iranian cargoes routed through Asia.
The tanker, formerly known as Adisa, was sanctioned on November 3, 2022 for transporting oil on behalf of the IRGC-Quds Force to Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon—both of which are deemed terrorist organizations by US authorities—as well as to Syria.
The US campaign targeting the dark fleet has intensified for months. In an October report, Kpler said that over 60% of the vessels that have loaded Iranian crude in the last 12 months are now sanctioned by OFAC, up from 38% one year ago.
Still, according to shipping analytics firm Vortexa, Iran's shadow trade to China appears to be operating at full tilt. Export volumes stood at around 1.5-1.7 million bpd so far in 2025, it said, up slightly from last year but a full 25% from 2023.
"This consistency underscores the maturity of Iran’s sanctions-evasion logistics," it wrote in an analyst note, adding that Iran's capacity to get its crude to Chinese markets was limited by the number of eligible vessels and muted buyer interest.
Venezuela is offering its sanctioned crude at a $14–15 per barrel discount, according to reporting by Reuters. Kpler previously estimated that Iran, too, has increased its discounts to around $8 per barrel.
Along with Russia, the sanctioned exporters are effectively in direct competition with one another to lure Chinese buyers by offering deeper discounts.
Complicating matters further, with the global market oversupplied, the baseline price of oil has fallen to around $62 per barrel.
Discounts of $11-15 dollars therefore wipe out a substantial portion of export revenues for the sanctioned trio — all of which remain under pressure to lower prices even more to retain Chinese clients.
Chartering a Very Large Crude Carrier the size of the Skipper typically costs around $100,000 per day, and much higher for sanctioned cargoes.
For Iran — now holding 200 million barrels on the water according to Vortexa, the pressure to sell quickly is immense.
To the costs of chartering and discounting must also be added the expensive sanctions-evasion operations: ship-to-ship transfers, falsified documentation to rebrand cargoes, intermediaries and non-standard insurance.
Kpler data indicates that Iranian crude discharge in Chinese ports has fallen to 1.2 million bpd in the last two months after hitting near 2 million bpd in September and October as Chinese buying pauses late into the trading cycle.
Along with global low oil prices, the combined pressures may hit at Iran’s oil revenues when its economy can tolerate it least. The Iranian rial has depreciated at an accelerating rate in recent weeks and inflation has surged.
The currency lost nearly 15% of its value in just the past month and hit a new low on Monday of 1.31 million to the dollar.
Major General Yahya Safavi, also head of the Sacred Defense Sciences and Teachings Research Institute, said a national conference focused on sustainable development and security in Iran’s southeast aims to produce an operational strategy for the region, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“The country’s southeast region is a hidden treasure... This region has unique capacities with geopolitical, geostrategic, and geocultural significance. It can develop economic potential that serves as an alternative to an oil-based economy.”
Safavi said the region, spanning parts of Sistan-Baluchistan, Kerman, Hormozgan and South Khorasan provinces, accounts for about one-fifth of Iran’s territory and around one-tenth of its population.
He said 64 academic centers and universities, along with armed forces institutions, are participating in the initiative.
“Security and development are interconnected and must be pursued together,” Safavi said, adding that security in the region is provided through coordination between the Revolutionary Guards, the army and other forces.
He said the southeast’s 1,400 km (870 miles) of shared borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan give it the potential to function as an economic corridor, noting that current trade with Pakistan totals about 2 million tons annually and that the capacity of Chabahar port runs into several million tons.
He called on state bodies and investors to focus on the Makran coast and surrounding areas, describing them as national assets requiring special attention, and said a proposed monitoring center would track economic and security indicators and report regularly to the public.
Referring to US sanctions, including those affecting Chabahar port, Safavi said Iran should deepen economic ties with its 15 neighbors.
“If we strengthen private-sector trade with neighboring countries, the Americans cannot control Iran’s economic relations,” he said, adding that despite US pressure, “they cannot stop us.”
Pollack’s assessment comes as Iran faces overlapping crises at home and abroad.
The country is under intense economic strain, social dissent has become more visible and the Islamic Republic is recalibrating after military setbacks suffered by the June war with Israel.
Yet despite the pressure, Pollack said the system remains intact for a simple reason.
“Revolutions only succeed when regimes lose either the capacity or the willingness to use force,” he said. “The Islamic Republic learned from 1979. It is determined not to repeat the Shah’s mistake.”
“There is no question this country is in a pre-revolutionary state,” Pollack added. “They’re trying to have a revolution.”
Pollack pointed to Iran’s long cycle of unrest, tracing repeated efforts to challenge the Islamic Republic back to the 1999 student uprising.
Since then, protest waves have erupted every few years, including nationwide demonstrations and the women-led revolt that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody.
Each time, he said, the population pushed harder, experimented with new tactics and widened the social base of dissent.
What stopped those efforts, Pollack said, was not a lack of public anger but the clerical establishment's consistent readiness to deploy force.
Pollack said episodes of unrest, such as at a public memorial service on Friday for a lawyer who died under mysterious circumstances, highlight the paradox defining Iran today: visible cracks in social control paired with an unflinching security response.
Looking ahead, Pollack identified the eventual death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the most serious potential inflection point.
At 86, the health of the veteran theocrat has become a subject of quiet speculation even inside Iran. Succession, Pollack warned, can destabilize authoritarian systems by exposing elite rivalries or paralyzing decision-making.
“Succession can just as easily lead to chaos, fragmentation or something worse,” he warned. “These systems often survive by becoming more repressive, not less.”
Pollack also criticized US policy for focusing too narrowly on Iran’s nuclear program while sidelining Iran's regional behavior and domestic repression. He warned that treating nuclear negotiations as the central problem risks missing broader forces shaping Iran’s future.
“The nuclear program is an irritant,” he said. “The real issue is the regime’s drive to dominate the region and its willingness to repress its own population to survive.”
For now, Pollack said, Iran remains suspended in a dangerous middle ground: a society actively trying to change its political fate and a state still capable of stopping it.
“These regimes can endure for a long time,” he said. “But when they finally break, it usually happens faster than anyone expects.”
