Iranian supertanker evades US sanctions, reaches Asia with $220 million worth of oil

According to ship tracking company TankerTrackers.com, an Iranian supertanker carrying more than $220 million worth of crude oil has evaded a US naval blockade and reached the Asia-Pacific region. Al Jazeera reported this news.
In a post on social media on Sunday (May 3), TankerTrackers said that the ship is a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) owned by Iran’s National Iranian Tanker Company and is named ‘Hughes’. It is carrying about 1.9 million barrels of crude oil, which has a market value of about $220 million.
According to the company, the ship was last seen off the coast of Sri Lanka more than a week ago. It is currently passing through the Lombok Strait in Indonesia and heading towards the Riau Islands.
The ship was in Iranian waters on April 13, the day the US announced a blockade on Iranian ports. The agency also claimed that the ship had been turning off its Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal since it set sail from the Strait of Malacca on March 20 for Iran.
Earlier, Iranian state media claimed on April 29 that at least 52 Iranian ships had managed to break the US blockade. On the other hand, the US military said that at least 41 Iranian-related ships had been forced to turn back since the blockade began.
US officials have claimed that the blockade is taking effect and has cost Iran billions of dollars. They say that the disruption to oil exports is forcing Iran to stockpile oil and that production could also be cut if its capacity is exhausted.