Dynamic Wave Contracted for Diesel But Received 113,000 Barrels of Iranian Jet Fuel

A tanker arrived in Myanmar in December 2025 carrying 113,000 barrels of Iranian jet fuel, though its contract listed the cargo as South African diesel. The vessel, named Reef, was under US sanctions. Dynamic Wave, a Myanmar-based energy broker, signed the $15.8 million deal with Thailand's Tawan-Oil Trading. The paperwork did not match the actual cargo.

The discrepancy suggests a deliberate effort to obscure the source of the fuel. Washington imposed targeted sanctions on Myanmar’s jet-fuel industry in 2023. The US government cited the military's bombing of civilian targets during its campaign against rebel forces. Broader American sanctions also apply to buyers of Iranian oil and fuel. The relabeling allowed the transaction to proceed despite these restrictions.

Myanmar’s foreign exchange regulator appears to have facilitated the swap. A letter dated November 30 from the regulator instructed the client that import papers would describe the delivery as diesel instead of jet fuel. The letter provided no reason for the change. It also authorized Dynamic Wave and its client, National Energy Prime Aviation Services Company, to pay Tawan. National Energy Prime is part-owned by Myanmar's military-backed government.

The activist group Justice for Myanmar supplied the letter to Reuters. The group said it obtained the documents from a junta-run server that was briefly open to the public. A dead link to one of the files appeared in search engine results, suggesting the document was hosted on that server. Delivery dates and quantities in the documents align with separate Iranian shipment records reviewed by Reuters.

Payment for the shipment went to Tawan's account at Siam Commercial Bank, Thailand's oldest institution. A 2024 UN experts' report identified Tawan as a jet-fuel supplier to Myanmar's military. The same report described the bank as a major facilitator of military procurement. The bank stated it follows anti-money-laundering laws and that its Myanmar-related transactions were legitimate. Reuters could not determine if the bank knew the nature of Tawan's business.

This was not the first instance of mislabeled fuel reaching Myanmar. In May 2025, Dynamic Wave agreed to buy 202,000 barrels of 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 rather than Southeast Asian diesel. The price exceeded the global diesel benchmark by more than 50%. The tanker Noble delivered just under 200,000 barrels of jet fuel to Yangon on June 17.

SynMax Intelligence tracked the Noble from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas to Southeast Asia. The vessel broadcast signals suggesting it was bound for Chittagong, Bangladesh, before reaching Myanmar. Satellite images confirmed the route. These patterns indicate a recurring method for moving sanctioned Iranian fuel into the country.

Myanmar’s generals seized power in 2021 from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering a civil war. The United Nations reported in August 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 fuel supports both commercial flights and military air raids.

Reuters reported in January that Iran was the military's main jet-fuel supplier between October 2024 and December 2025. Shipments have continued into 2026. 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.