Bureau Veritas Ending Certification of Iranian Vessels and Oil Tankers

The French shipping service, Bureau Veritas pledged to end its certification of Iranian shipping vessels and "decided to disengage completely from all Marine activities related to Iran."

Bureau Veritas assured that this pledge specifically includes "all vessels of the IRISL (Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines) and of its subsidiaries, irrespective of their flags," as well as all NITC (National Iranian Tanker Company) vessels.

"The international community must focus specifically on the shipping industry, to deny the Iranian regime access to global trade and seaborne crude oil exports. Aligned nations should prohibit all international cargo shippers that service Iranian ports from shipping to the U.S., EU and elsewhere. By cutting off Iran's shipping access, the world can further isolate the regime and hamper its nuclear program and support for terrorists."

Now the cork is in the bottle. Since 1828, Bureau Veritas has been the certifying agency for the safety of any ship that wants to use any port on the planet.

They are to worldwide shipping what UL (Underwriters Laboratories) is to electrical products. Without a UL label it can't be sold.

Without a Bureau Veritas safety certification a ship cannot enter any port.

This move follows a similar decision by Lloyd’s Register and DNV to stop certifying Iranian ships.

No Iranian vessel can enter a port and offload/load anything. If a port allows Iranian vessels, all of the port's insurance is canceled and any other certified vessel would have to leave and stay away from that port or lose its insurance coverage also.

The offending port would also have all of its contracts canceled, including any for ports-of-call military contracts that we, the Russians, Chinese, etc. may have.

It is a death sentence for any port to allow Iranian vessels to dock, offload oil, etc., including standoff oil terminals for offloading.

Currently certified Iranian vessels can continue to dock until their certifications expire over the next one to five years.

This is very good news and is a direct result of the Iranian embargo sanctions that were finally declared this year.

Iran has gotten away with international sales by using the barter system instead of money transfer. Now, each country it trades with with have its own ports shut down if they allow Iranian vessels to dock.

Iran has only overland and air transport left to sell its goods.

Iran can still contract with rogue shippers to deliver goods but their own fleet and subsidiaries is effectively shut down.

Iran has been using many of its tankers only for storage of oil, anchored out in the Indian Ocean, waiting for buyers. Now most of those tankers are stuck and can’t offload.

Iran is very clever and could try to offload goods at sea to rogue shippers. But this new sanction really complicates Iranian sales of anything needing shipping.

Since 1828, Bureau Veritas has been the certifying agency for the safety of any ship that wants to use any port on the planet.

Sounds like the "New World Order" has been around for a lot longer than anyone thought.

They are to worldwide shipping what UL (Underwriters Laboratories) is to electrical products. Without a UL label it can't be sold.

There are also the CE labeled products, but in the Middle East, many products are sold without either of these labels or fake (Chinese) certification.

The offending port would also have all of its contracts canceled, including any for ports-of-call military contracts that we, the Russians, Chinese, etc. may have.

What would the repercussions be if, say, the Russians or Chinese just said "scr*w Bureau Veritas and went their own way? If they were also cut out of the world markets, that would be a significant loss of trade.

BTW- Iran can just import/export from the Dubai free trade zones.

Thanks very much for the post and commentary.

What about these plays for Iran:

- Fake out and/or corrupt the nuke inspectors
- Bribe/corrupt the transport channels
- Wait out the sanctions while playing victim, ‘it’s killing civilians, etc.’

I’m thinking along the lines of what happened with the Iraq sanctions.

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