(Bloomberg) -- Oil tankers waiting nearby Iran’s biggest crude-loading facility fled the area in the days since Tehran launched a missile salvo toward Israel on Monday and the world waits to see what the response will be.
President Joe Biden, asked on Thursday if he would support Israel hitting Iran’s oil assets, said they were “discussing” it, followed by truncated comments, highlighting the risks to petroleum supply if conflict between the two Middle East foes escalates.
Vessels that were previously sitting empty at an anchorage area near Kharg Island have now left the area, according to a post on X by TankerTrackers.com Inc, which monitors the vessels using satellite data, and Sentinel images examined by Bloomberg.
The first image shows the area on Saturday, with at least nine tankers anchored to the south and east of the island.
The second, from Wednesday, shows just one vessel in the anchorage area and a visible wake behind the ship suggesting it was underway and heading to a loading jetty. Eight anchored tankers are also visible on a image from Monday that covers only the eastern part of the anchorage.
The vessels have dispersed through the Persian Gulf, the photos show.
It’s the first time such a move has happened since 2018, TankerTrackers said. The measure doesn’t affect loadings, only the anchorage area.
Although Iran is under sanctions, it has increasingly worked around those measures to pump significant volumes of supply to the oil market in recent years. The country’s output was 3.3 million barrels a day in September, according to a Bloomberg survey.
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