Myanmar Regulators Rewrote Fuel Contracts to Mask Iranian Jet Fuel

Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator approved paperwork in December 2025 that listed a shipment of Iranian jet fuel as diesel, a move that helped a sanctioned tanker deliver roughly 113,000 barrels of fuel to the country.

The vessel, named Reef, arrived with contracts describing its cargo as South African diesel. However, shipping data and satellite images from SynMax Intelligence tracked the ship’s path from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia. The discrepancy between the paper trail and the physical cargo highlights the complexity of the fuel trade under sanctions.

Dynamic Wave, a Myanmar-based energy broker, signed the $15.8 million contract with Tawan-Oil Trading, a company based in Thailand. The deal stipulated a similar volume of South African diesel. Yet, data from the United Nations and Vortexa showed no record of such a trade between South Africa and Myanmar during 2025. The mismatch suggests the diesel label served primarily to obscure the origin of the fuel.

Washington targeted Myanmar’s jet-fuel industry with sanctions in 2023. The move followed the military’s bombing of civilian targets during its fight against a rebel-led insurgency. Broader American sanctions also apply to anyone purchasing Iranian oil, making the disguise a necessary step for buyers seeking to avoid penalties.

A letter dated November 30 from Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator instructed the client of Dynamic Wave to issue import papers describing the delivery as diesel rather than jet fuel. The letter, provided by the activist group Justice for Myanmar, authorized payments from Dynamic Wave and its client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, to Tawan. National Energy Prime is part-owned by Myanmar’s military-backed government. The regulator did not explain the reason for the label change in the document.

Justice for Myanmar stated it obtained the files from a server operated by the junta that was briefly accessible to the public. The group found a dead link to one of the files in search engine results, suggesting the documents had been hosted there. Delivery dates and quantities in the recovered files matched Iranian shipment records reviewed separately.

This is not the first time such a method was used. In May 2025, Dynamic Wave agreed to buy 202,000 barrels of supposed South African diesel from Tawan for $26 million. Joshua Heyne, a jet-fuel expert at Washington State University, noted that the fuel density in the invoice matched jet fuel rather than Southeast Asian diesel. The price was also more than 50% above the global diesel benchmark. The tanker Noble delivered just under 200,000 barrels to Yangon on June 17, with signals indicating it had loaded in Bandar Abbas.

Payment for the December shipment went to Tawan’s account at Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand’s oldest bank. A 2024 report by UN experts named Tawan as a jet-fuel supplier to Myanmar’s military and identified the bank as a major facilitator of the military’s procurement. The bank maintains that its transactions were legitimate and unconnected to the arms trade, though Reuters could not determine if the bank knew the specific nature of Tawan’s business.

Myanmar’s generals took control from the elected government in 2021, sparking a civil war. The United Nations reported in August that the military has killed thousands in air attacks, many of them civilians. The country’s foreign ministry said the military exercises maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm. Dynamic Wave, Tawan, Siam Commercial Bank, and other parties involved did not respond to requests for comment.