Iranian oil tankers are contending with longer delays in shipments and some are idled amid increasing pressure on buyers to curb purchases from what was once OPEC’s second-biggest producer, Bloomberg reported Thursday, December 6. NITC, the Tehran-based tanker owner, has 42 crude oil carriers and 13 were delayed in transit since Oct. 21, according to data compiled by IHS Fairplay in London. Four NITC ships with cargoes are idling while they await orders and four others have switched off their signals and are presumed to be anchored, the data show. Iran is reliant on NITC ships because E.U. sanctions imposed in July barred about 95 percent of the global tanker fleet from carrying the nation’s crude. In an attempt to evade the sanctions, NITC has renamed vessels, switched their flag states and signaled inaccurate information about where they are registered, according to the data from IHS.