Myanmar Fuel Trade: 113,000 Barrels of Jet Fuel Disguised as Diesel

A sanctioned tanker delivered approximately 113,000 barrels of Iranian jet fuel to Myanmar in December 2025, arriving with documents that listed the cargo as South African diesel. The vessel, identified as the Reef, arrived in Myanmar waters with paperwork that did not match its actual contents, based on shipping data and internal documents reviewed by Reuters.

The purchase was executed by Dynamic Wave, a Myanmar-based energy broker, which signed a $15.8 million contract with Tawan-Oil Trading, a Thai company. The agreement specified the delivery of South African diesel. However, data from the United Nations and Vortexa showed no record of such trade between South Africa and Myanmar during 2025. Satellite imagery from SynMax Intelligence tracked the Reef from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia.

The mislabeling was a strategy to bypass US sanctions imposed in 2023 on Myanmar's jet fuel sector. Washington targeted the industry due to the military's use of air raids against civilian targets. Broad American sanctions also apply to buyers of Iranian oil products.

Myanmar's foreign exchange regulator played a central role in the transaction. On November 30, the regulator sent a letter to the client of Dynamic Wave stating that import papers would describe the shipment as diesel rather than jet fuel. The letter, provided to Reuters by the activist group Justice for Myanmar, authorized Dynamic Wave and its client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, to pay Tawan. National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company is partially owned by Myanmar's military-backed government.

Justice for Myanmar stated it retrieved the documents from a server operated by the junta that had been publicly accessible for a short period. Reuters identified a broken link in search engine results pointing to one of the files, indicating it was previously hosted there. The delivery dates and quantities in the documents align with Iranian shipment records.

This December delivery followed a similar transaction in May 2025, when Dynamic Wave agreed to buy 202,000 barrels of alleged South African diesel for $26 million. Analysis by Joshua Heyne, a jet fuel expert at Washington State University, and Platts data indicated the fuel density matched jet fuel. The price exceeded global diesel benchmarks by more than 50 percent. The tanker Noble delivered nearly 200,000 barrels of jet fuel to Yangon on June 17, loaded at Bandar Abbas.

Payments for the fuel were directed to Tawan's account at Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand's oldest financial institution. A 2024 United Nations report identified Tawan as a jet fuel supplier to the Myanmar military and described the bank as a key facilitator in military procurement. The bank maintains that its transactions were legitimate and followed anti-money laundering rules. No responses to comment requests were received from Dynamic Wave, its client, Tawan, the bank, Thai or Myanmar authorities, Iran's foreign ministry, or the US Treasury.