Myanmar Officials Signed Off On Diesel Labels For Iranian Jet Fuel

Myanmar's foreign exchange regulator formally approved a change in fuel labels in late November 2025. A letter dated November 30 instructed that import documents for a specific shipment describe the cargo as diesel rather than jet fuel. The paperwork was prepared for a client of Dynamic Wave, a local energy broker. The client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, is partly owned by the military-backed government.

The actual cargo arrived on the tanker Reef in December 2025. The vessel carried approximately 113,000 barrels of jet fuel from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The contract signed by Dynamic Wave and Thailand's Tawan-Oil Trading valued the deal at $15.8 million. The agreement originally described the goods as South African diesel. However, United Nations and Vortexa data show no record of such a trade between South Africa and Myanmar during 2025.

The relabeling was designed to bypass US sanctions imposed on Myanmar's jet-fuel industry in 2023. Washington targeted the sector due to the military's bombing of civilian areas during the insurgency. Broad US sanctions also apply to anyone purchasing Iranian oil and fuel. The regulator's letter authorized Dynamic Wave and its client to pay Tawan for the delivery without explaining the label change.

This was not the first time the broker used this method. In May 2025, Dynamic Wave agreed to buy 202,000 barrels of alleged South African diesel from Tawan for $26 million. Jet-fuel expert Joshua Heyne of Washington State University noted that the fuel density in the invoice matched jet fuel. The price was more than 50% above the global diesel benchmark. The tanker Noble delivered just under 200,000 barrels of jet fuel to Yangon on June 17, 2025, after loading in Bandar Abbas.

Documents for the December shipment were obtained by the activist group Justice for Myanmar. The group said the files came from a junta-run server that was briefly open to the public. Reuters found a dead link to one of the files in search engine results, suggesting it had been hosted there. Delivery dates and quantities in the documents align with Iranian shipment records reviewed separately by the news agency.

Payments for the December contract were directed to Tawan's account at Siam Commercial Bank. A 2024 UN experts' report named Tawan as a jet-fuel supplier to the Myanmar military. The report also identified the bank as a major facilitator of military procurement. Siam Commercial Bank stated it follows anti-money-laundering laws and described its Myanmar-related transactions as legitimate and unconnected to the arms trade. Reuters could not determine if the bank knew the true nature of Tawan's business.

The United Nations reported in August 2026 that the military has killed thousands of people, many of them civilians, in air attacks. Myanmar's foreign ministry responded that the military exercises maximum restraint to avoid civilian harm. The use of Iranian jet fuel supports both commercial flights and military air raids in the country. Dynamic Wave, its client, Tawan, the bank, Thai and Myanmar authorities, Iran's foreign ministry, and the US Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.