Myanmar Military Imports Iranian Jet Fuel Mislabeled as Diesel
Documents show a $15.8 million shipment of 113,000 barrels arrived in December 2025 under false paperwork to bypass US sanctions.
By Giulia Donovan ·
The US-sanctioned tanker Reef delivered 113,000 barrels of fuel to Myanmar waters in December 2025. The cargo consisted of Iranian jet fuel, but official paperwork listed it as South African diesel.
Myanmar-based energy broker Dynamic Wave ordered the shipment from Thailand’s Tawan-Oil Trading. The sales contract, valued at $15.8 million, was a charade because no such trade between South Africa and Myanmar existed in 2025, according to data from the United Nations and shipping provider Vortexa.
SynMax Intelligence tracked the tanker’s journey from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia using satellite imagery and shipment records. The deception allowed the military to bypass targeted US sanctions imposed in 2023 on Myanmar’s jet-fuel industry. Washington cited the military's bombing of civilian targets during the rebel-led insurgency as the reason for the sanctions.
Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator authorized the import documentation days before the ship arrived. A November 30 letter seen by Reuters stated the agency would issue documents labeling the delivery as diesel “instead of jet fuel.” The letter also authorized Dynamic Wave and its client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, to pay Tawan for the shipment.
Tehran served as the primary supplier of jet fuel to the Myanmar military from October 2024 through December 2025. The Reef, since renamed Maris, and the tanker Noble carried out much of this trade, according to a January Reuters report. Neither Dynamic Wave, National Energy Prime, nor the Iranian foreign ministry responded to questions about the specific December shipment.
The payment for the December contract was routed to Tawan’s account at Siam Commercial Bank (SCB). UN experts identified Tawan as a jet-fuel supplier to the Myanmar military in a 2024 report. The same report described SCB as a major facilitator of military procurement. SCB did not respond to requests for comment about its relationship with Tawan.
This was not the first instance of mislabeled fuel. In May 2025, Dynamic Wave agreed to buy 202,000 barrels of fuel from Tawan, described in a second contract as South African diesel for $26 million. Joshua Heyne, a jet-fuel expert at Washington State University, noted that the fuel density listed in the invoice matched jet fuel specifications rather than diesel. The price was also more than 50% higher than the global diesel benchmark.
The Noble arrived in Yangon on June 17 carrying nearly 200,000 barrels of jet fuel. Satellite analysis showed the ship was loaded in Bandar Abbas but transmitted location signals suggesting its destination was Chittagong, Bangladesh. Shipment records indicate that fuel transfers between Iran and Myanmar have continued throughout 2026.
