Myanmar Officials Rewrote Contracts to Mask Iranian Jet Fuel Shipments

Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator instructed a domestic broker to alter official paperwork in December so that a shipment of Iranian jet fuel would be recorded as diesel. A letter dated November 30, obtained by the activist group Justice for Myanmar, told the client of the broker, Dynamic Wave, that import documents would describe the cargo as diesel "instead of jet fuel." The letter authorized both Dynamic Wave and its client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, to process payments for the delivery.

The vessel involved was the tanker Reef, which arrived in Myanmar waters in December 2025 carrying approximately 113,000 barrels of fuel. Shipping data and satellite imagery from SynMax Intelligence tracked the ship from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia. The contract for the shipment was signed by Dynamic Wave with Tawan-Oil Trading, a Thai company, for $15.8 million. The agreement specified the delivery of South African diesel, a description that did not match the cargo aboard the vessel.

The mislabeling was a strategic move to bypass US sanctions imposed in 2023 on Myanmar’s jet-fuel industry. Washington targeted the sector in response to the military's bombing of civilian targets during its conflict with rebel groups. Broader American sanctions also apply to any entity purchasing Iranian oil and fuel. Because National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company is partially owned by Myanmar’s military-backed government, the shipment represents a direct financial link between the junta and a sanctioned supplier.

This was not the first instance of such a transaction. In May 2025, Dynamic Wave agreed to purchase 202,000 barrels of purported South African diesel from Tawan for $26 million. The tanker Noble delivered just under 200,000 barrels of fuel to Yangon on June 17. Jet-fuel expert Joshua Heyne of Washington State University noted that the fuel density listed on the invoice matched jet fuel rather than Southeast Asian diesel. Additionally, the price was more than 50% higher than the global diesel benchmark at the time.

The financial flow of the trade is tied to Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand’s oldest financial institution. The contract directed payments to Tawan’s account at the bank. A 2024 report by United Nations experts identified Tawan as a supplier of jet fuel to Myanmar’s military and described the bank as a key facilitator of military procurement. The bank maintains that it adheres to anti-money-laundering laws and that its transactions with Myanmar were legitimate and unrelated to the arms trade.

The documents detailing the December shipment were reportedly sourced from a server run by the junta that was briefly accessible to the public. Reuters found a broken link to one of the files in search engine results, indicating the files had been hosted there. The delivery dates and quantities in the internal documents align with independent Iranian shipment records. The foreign exchange regulator’s letter provided no specific rationale for changing the fuel classification in the import paperwork.

The military took control of Myanmar in 2021, displacing the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and igniting a civil war. In August, the United Nations stated that the military had killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, in air strikes. The foreign ministry responded by asserting that the military exercises maximum restraint to prevent civilian harm. The continued flow of Iranian fuel supports both commercial aviation and military air operations in the country.

Myanmar’s generals, the foreign ministry, the US Treasury, and the relevant companies did not respond to requests for comment regarding the discrepancy in the paperwork. The trade continues despite the sanctions, providing Iran with foreign currency while supplying the military with fuel for its air campaign.