TEHRAN: Iran’s oil sales network faces renewed scrutiny after investigative journalist Yashar Soltani alleged that sanctions-era exports increasingly rely on opaque intermediaries outside the Petroleum Ministry’s traditional structures.
In an interview highlighted by IranWire on September 18, Soltani said Iran lacks clear answers about who sells its crude, who buys it, how payments return and who bears responsibility for unpaid revenue.
Soltani distinguished between oil “traders,” who arrange sales, and “trustees,” who move the resulting money through financial channels.
He acknowledged that sanctions can make intermediaries necessary. However, he argued that Iran lacks sufficient transparency in selecting them, providing financial guarantees and taking responsibility for returning proceeds.
That broader concern has surfaced elsewhere in Iran. Al Jazeera reported in February that Iranian officials and lawmakers were questioning
Trustee networks after billions of dollars in oil proceeds failed to return. Former oil executive Ali Akbar Pour Ebrahim put the amount at as much as $11 billion.
More recently, Iran International showed officials raising concerns about crude allocations to private intermediaries who allegedly still owed money from previous transactions.
Soltani said he had identified roughly 1,600 people involved across Iran’s oil-sales and payment networks. That figure is his estimate and has not been independently verified.
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He also alleged that four sellers gained about $1.5 billion through differences between market prices and discounted crude allocations.
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Soltani separately said an oil-sector oversight official told him that roughly 100 million barrels lacked a clear accounting entry showing their ultimate destination. He distinguished that oil from unsold crude or floating storage.
He named Hossein Shamkhani, son of former security official Ali Shamkhani, and Ruhollah Razavi while discussing alleged sellers and debtors.
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Soltani proposed placing oil sales under a specialised institution, strengthening vetting and payment guarantees, and creating clearer accountability for state oil income.
