A trader identified by The Wall Street Journal as a central figure in Russia’s shadow fleet has revived his oil business after the Iran war disrupted supplies from the Persian Gulf and boosted demand for Russian crude that had been stranded at sea.

The Journal reported that Etibar Eyyub, an Azeri oil trader, has become one of Moscow’s most important intermediaries since the start of the war in Ukraine, handling more than $50 billion a year in crude and fuel sales and controlling as much as a third of the roughly 600 ships used to move Russian oil.

Until recently, his network had been under growing international pressure. U.S. sanctions on Rosneft, his main client, had cut Indian purchases of Russian crude, and tankers linked to his operation were carrying millions of barrels of unsold oil, according to the Journal.

That changed after the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, the paper reported. With supplies trapped in the Persian Gulf, Indian and Chinese refiners began buying Russian crude cargoes that had been left at sea. The newspaper said the United States granted India a 30-day waiver to buy stranded Russian oil and later extended that relief more broadly.

In the past two weeks, India has bought more than 30 million barrels of petroleum for delivery this month and next, most of it handled by Eyyub and his associates, according to traders cited by the WSJ. The deals would help reduce a glut of 150 million barrels of oil that had built up at sea and return Indian imports from Russia to levels seen before sanctions on Rosneft last fall, the report said.

“We are not popping the champagne yet because nobody knows where this war will take us,” a senior Rosneft official said in the report. “But our exports are substantially up in a very short period of time.”

The Journal said the rebound has weakened a Western effort to curb Russia’s oil revenues by targeting the shadow fleet. Russia’s Urals crude, which had traded at a discount of nearly 20 percent before the attack on Iran, is now trading almost in line with global benchmarks, the paper reported.

Eyyub has been sanctioned by Britain, the European Union and Canada. It reported that while the United States has not sanctioned him, he is a target of a long-running Justice Department investigation into suspected sanctions evasion. After EU sanctions were imposed, Eyyub said: “I have never done anything unlawful or wrongful,” according to the report.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal