Two Iranian cargo vessels carrying an ingredient for missile propellant will sail from China to Iran in the next few weeks, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing intelligence from security officials in two Western countries.
The reported transactions could make the Chinese entities involved subject to US sanctions aimed at curbing Iran's weapons programs, as the two Iranian vessels are already under US sanctions.
The FT said the Iranian-flagged ships, the Golbon and the Jairan, are expected to carry more than 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, which is used to make ammonium perchlorate, the main ingredient for solid propellant for missiles.
Ammonium perchlorate is among chemicals controlled by the Missile Technology Export Control Regime, a voluntary international anti-proliferation body, Reuters reported.
The FT report cited two unnamed officials as saying that the sodium perchlorate could produce 960 tons of ammonium perchlorate, enough to make 1,300 tons of propellant, which could fuel 260 mid-range Iranian missiles.
The officials said the sodium perchlorate was being shipped to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and that 34 20-foot (six-meter) containers containing the chemical had been loaded onto the Golbon, which departed the Chinese island of Daishan on Tuesday and was off the coast of Ningbo in China’s Zhejiang province early on Wednesday.
The FT said the Jairan is expected to depart China with 22 containers in early February. The officials told the FT that both ships, owned by Iranian entities, were expected to make the three-week voyage to Iran without making any port calls.
The officials said the chemicals were loaded onto the Golbon at Taicang, a port just north of Shanghai, and were destined for Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on the Arabian Gulf.
The FT said the officials could not say if Beijing was aware of the shipments.
The spokesperson for China's Washington embassy, Liu Pengyu, said he was not familiar with the situation reported by the FT.
Doug Jacobson, a Washington-based sanctions lawyer, said that while UN sanctions on Iran's missile program were no longer in effect, the Chinese entities involved in the reported transactions could face US sanctions against dealings with both the IRGC and the already sanctioned vessels.
Vann Van Diepen, a retired US non-proliferation official, said Chinese entities had been helping Iran's missile program since the 1980s. He said Iran probably had its own ammonia perchlorate production facility by now, but may need feedstock to make the chemical.
"It's probably not sort of a continuous flow thing," he said. "But from time to time, over these many years, these kinds of shipments will go on."
The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but an official there, who did not want to be identified, said that if the missiles were designed to be used by
Russia in Ukraine, the shipment could be subject to US sanctions to curb dealings with Moscow.
In 2023, The United States imposed sanctions on people and entities in China, Hong Kong and Iran, including Iran's defense attache in Beijing, over accusations they helped procure parts and technology for Iran's ballistic missile development. It imposed similar sanctions on individuals and entities last year.
