Best Oasis wins OFAC authorisation to negotiate for sanctioned ships bound for scrap
The Dubai cash buyer is the second after GMS, which has already taken Shamkhani boxships and seized US tankers
Dubai-based cash buyer Best Oasis has received authorisation from the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to negotiate deals involving sanctioned vessels, the second company after GMS to win such approval. The licence opens another route for removing ageing ships from a sanctioned fleet that has grown quickly as Western governments target vessels carrying Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan oil.
The authorisation covers negotiations only. Each transaction involving a blocked vessel would still need its own OFAC clearance before it could be completed.
Best Oasis, headed by Gaurav Mehta, is one of the world's largest cash buyers of end-of-life ships. It was set up in 2010 as an expansion of India's Priya Blue ship recycling business.
GMS opened the route earlier this year. In May, Washington authorised it to buy four sanctioned containerships linked to the Iranian shipping magnate Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani for recycling: Yogi, Timon, Rantanplan and Bigli, which had been stranded since their designation under US sanctions last year. In August GMS secured approval to recycle two tankers taken into US custody during the crackdown on Venezuelan oil shipments, Marinera and Galileo.
Marinera, the VLCC first seized as Bella 1, has since reached the Chattogram breakers as Era. She was sold on for $20.8m, and a Russian claimant is asking a US court to stop the sale.
The growing willingness in Washington to license recycling deals comes as sanctioned vessels account for an increasingly large share of the demolition market.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 11 November 2026.
