The Trump administration is allowing sanctioned oil tankers to undergo a process to start legitimately shipping crude, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Investors are proposing to buy idled sanctioned tankers, refurbish them and use them to transport non-sanctioned oil, Wright said on October 19 at a Citadel Securities event in New York.

“We’re going to move some of the ships from what I call the ‘bad-guy fleet’ to the ‘good-guy fleet,’” Wright said. “They will not carry sanctioned oil anymore.”

The Trump administration is undertaking an approval process to make sanctioned ships legitimate, Wright said. He rejected the idea that the U.S. was simply removing sanctions from tankers that carried crude from nations such as Russia or Iran. 

“We are converting dark tankers to legitimate tankers,” Wright said. “There is no removing of sanctions.”

He estimated that there are about 1,600 vessels in the global “dark fleet” of sanctioned tankers. The Trump administration’s effort to convert those into lawful ships could ultimately add “dozens” or even “hundreds” of tankers to the legitimate fleet, he said.