Iran's First Oil Shipment During Sanctions Arrives in Japan

Reports indicate that Iran's first oil shipment after the implementation of U.S. sanctions against Iran in November has arrived in Japan on Wednesday, February 13. The company 'Tanker Trackers', which tracks maritime oil shipments, reported on its Twitter page that for the first time in recent months, two million barrels of Iranian oil were delivered to this country by a Japanese tanker. According to Reuters statistics, Japan halted oil purchases from Iran in November. This country had been buying nearly 153,000 barrels of oil from Iran daily over the past 10 months and resumed its oil purchases from Iran in January of this year. It usually takes about a month for tankers to load oil shipments from Iranian ports and deliver them to Japanese ports. Last month, various reports were published about the loading of Iranian oil shipments towards Japan, making the arrival of the first Iranian oil shipment in Japan on this day, February 13, expected. An important point regarding Japan's oil purchases from Iran is that this country is the only customer of Iran that loads the Islamic Republic's oil with its own tankers. Iran has to use its own tankers to sell oil to other countries and bear the insurance risks itself. Meanwhile, the consulting company 'Refinitiv Energy' also reported on its Twitter page that Iran sold about 143,000 barrels of oil to Japan daily in January, and six Japanese tankers are either loading or transporting these shipments to Japan. Another oil customer of Iran, South Korea, had stopped buying oil from the Islamic Republic even before the U.S. sanctions. Iran mainly sells gas condensates (a type of ultra-light crude oil produced from gas fields) to South Korea. Reports indicate that Iran resumed the sale of gas condensates to South Korea in December 2018. Refinitiv Energy's assessment also states that Iran was loading or transporting about 250,000 barrels of gas condensates daily to South Korea in January. Refinitiv Energy's statistics show that Iran's daily crude oil and gas condensate exports reached about 1.1 million barrels in January, which aligns exactly with Reuters' statistics. Iran's oil and gas condensate exports before the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA were 2.5 million barrels per day and fell below 750,000 barrels in December 2018. Reuters reported that it is not expected that Iran's oil sales will rise above January's levels. In November of last year, the U.S. granted exemptions to eight countries—China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, and Greece—for six months to continue limited oil purchases from Iran. It is still unclear whether these exemptions will be extended or not.