Reuters: Significant Decline in Iran's Oil Exports This Month

Reuters has reported, citing shipping data and industrial sources, that Iran's total oil and gas condensate exports in the current month of August have reached 2.05 million barrels per day. Statistics indicate that Iran's oil exports have been continuously declining since May of this year when the U.S. announced its withdrawal from the JCPOA. The month before the U.S. exit from the JCPOA, Iran's total daily oil and gas condensate exports were 3.09 million barrels, the highest level since sanctions were lifted in January 2016. The data shows that Iran's oil and gas condensate exports this month are nearly half a million barrels less than the average exports of the previous year. After exiting the JCPOA, the U.S. announced its intention to completely halt Iran's oil exports but later stated that it aims to significantly reduce Iran's exports and increase the number of countries that have stopped buying Iranian oil. Reuters writes that Iran has offered the highest discounts to its oil customers in the past 14 years compared to Saudi oil prices, but still has not been able to convince them to maintain their oil purchase levels. According to the report, China, as Iran's largest oil customer, has stopped using its own tankers to transport Iranian oil since last month. Iran is now forced to insure and transport oil sales to China itself. Nevertheless, during this month, Iran has only exported 593,000 barrels of oil to China daily, which shows a decrease of more than 23 percent compared to the previous month. Exports to India this month have also decreased by about 59 percent compared to July, reaching 264,000 barrels per day. However, shipping data indicates that this figure could increase, as the destination of 11 million barrels of Iranian oil that have been sent to international waters is still unknown and part of it may reach India. Japan has reduced its oil purchases from Iran for the second consecutive month, importing less than 110,000 barrels from the Islamic Republic this month. It is expected that this country will stop buying Iranian oil from November. Meanwhile, South Korea has not purchased any oil from Iran since July. Daily oil purchases from Europe have also dropped from about 740,000 barrels in March to 387,000 barrels this month. The International Energy Agency predicted in June that Iran's daily oil production could decrease by 900,000 barrels, equivalent to 23 percent of the country's total production, by the end of 2019. OPEC has not yet published its monthly report, but previous reports indicate that Iran's oil production decreased by more than 85,000 barrels daily in July and June. Recently, Bloomberg reported that the U.S. has reconsidered its complete halt of Iranian oil exports and now aims to reduce it by half.