Iran International says leaked oil-ministry letter shows Tehran sought control of Chinese terminals and storage to land sanctioned crude

Documented: On November 9, 2026, London-based Iran International reported that it had obtained a confidential letter from Hamid Bovard, former head of the National Iranian Oil Company and then acting oil minister, written in reply to correspondence involving Ali Shamkhani, a former secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and adviser to the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei. The outlet said Bovard described instructions to trusted intermediaries to keep using sanctioned vessels that could dock at designated Chinese ports, and said Iran’s foreign ministry had negotiated acquisition of port facilities and oil terminals to create a hub for sanctioned Iranian crude, alongside long-term leases on large storage tanks. Two unnamed Oil Ministry sources told the same outlet that Tehran had taken control of facilities at three Chinese locations—a terminal in the Ningbo-Zhoushan free-trade zone, which the sources said Iran came to control after helping build smaller transit facilities, and stakes in smaller docks at Qingdao and Pant in Shandong—and had bought or controlled seven storage tanks at Dalian, Huizhou, Dongying, Weifang, and in the Zhoushan area, including sites the sources placed on Aoshan and Shulanghu islands and in the Zengyamuo oil zone. The report said vessels tied to Hossein Shamkhani, Ali Shamkhani’s son, carried oil to those docks. Separately, the U.S. Treasury has publicly designated Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani’s shipping network, identifying more than 50 vessels in a July 30, 2025 action it called its largest Iran-related package since 2018, and has continued sanctions against that network in 2026, describing it as a major channel for Iranian oil sales, most often to buyers in China. OilPrice, Firstpost, News18, and other outlets republished the Iran International account. Neither Beijing nor Tehran has confirmed the letter or the claimed ownership stakes.

Claimed, not independently verified: The specific assertion that Iran owns or controls Chinese docks and tanks rests on one outlet’s unpublished document and two anonymous ministry sources. Republication is not a second investigation. No corporate registry filings, satellite confirmation, or official Chinese or U.S. statement has been published that independently establishes Iranian title or operational control at the named sites. The same reporting says China had already been pulling back—refusing larger import quotas for independent “teapot” refiners, demanding deeper discounts, and buying more Venezuelan crude—so the claimed infrastructure, if real, would sit inside a commercial relationship Beijing was already treating as a discount trade, not an open political alliance.

Speculated: That the arrangement amounts to a coordinated Iranian seizure of strategic Chinese ports, or a general logistics bypass of sanctions beyond oil discharge, is an inference the documents as reported do not support. What the letter is said to describe is narrower: designated berths and tanks so sanctioned tankers can discharge without the ship-to-ship transfers that vessel trackers usually catch. Whether those berths function that way, and whether Chinese port operators or refiners accepted the arrangement, is not established in the public record.