Just a few weeks into the war, one of the Persian Gulf¡¯s top oil producers quietly began sneaking its crude out of the Strait of Hormuz. Before long, the covert project became so successful that the United Arab Emirates was already approaching its prewar rate of flows through the waterway by the time the U.S. and Iran signed their interim peace deal.
The UAE¡¯s aggressive push to get barrels safely out of the strait relied on tactics normally associated with sanctioned countries such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela: the ships traveled ¡°dark¡± without their transponders (and often under the cover of literal darkness) before offloading their cargo into other tankers waiting outside the waterway, and then returning back to collect more.
Crucially though, officials in Abu Dhabi needed enough ships to make the risky transit ¡ª not just once, but over and over. And for that they turned to Ga-Hyun Chung for help.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.