Kuwait moves its crude through Hormuz with tracking signals off

Using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, Windward detected 17 of Kuwait's 33 commercial tankers at Kuwaiti terminals with AIS switched off, across 50 observations between 12 September and 28 October. AIS, the tracking system through which ships broadcast their position, shows only 3 Kuwaiti loadings since 1 August. Commodity tracking data count 53 loadings over the same period, 13 of them crude cargoes totalling about 24 million barrels.

According to Windward, those 13 cargoes amount to roughly 260,000 barrels a day, a third of January's pace. Since August, 11 of the 13 crude cargoes have passed from Kuwaiti tankers to foreign vessels through ship-to-ship transfers off Fujairah and Sohar. Windward wrote that at least 4 ships switched off their signals outside the Gulf and were later imaged at Kuwaiti terminals, and that 2 supertankers may have spoofed their positions.

According to Reuters data cited by Baird Maritime, Kuwait produced 2.1 million barrels a day in October, against 1.77 million in September and about 2.6 million in February. Preliminary Kpler data show Kuwait's crude exports rising to 880,000 barrels a day in October from 809,000 in September. Windward's 260,000-barrel figure is an August–October average covering only detected cargoes, so the two measures cannot be compared directly.

Kuwait's state tanker company, KOTC, is on the non-compliant vessel list that Iran expanded to 240 ships on 2 November. The PGSA says vessels taking part in transfers may also be listed. That creates a new risk for the foreign tankers taking over Kuwaiti cargo in the chain off Fujairah, where 11 cargoes have changed hands.