Iranian crude loadings have fallen to about one-seventh of their pre-war level under the US naval blockade, while Chinese receipts of Iranian oil and fuel exports have also dropped sharply, tanker-tracking data reviewed by Iran International shows.
Data from commodities intelligence firm Kpler shows Iran has loaded an average of about 287,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude so far this month, compared with roughly 2 million bpd before the Middle East war.
China, meanwhile, has received an average of just 523,000 bpd of Iranian crude so far this month. That compares with an average of about 800,000 bpd over the previous two months and more than 1.7 million bpd at the beginning of the war.
The United States reimposed a maritime blockade against the Islamic Republic in mid-July. As a result, more than 40 million barrels of Iranian oil stored on tankers in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman have become effectively trapped, Kpler estimates.
Iran has stored 83 million barrels of oil outside the blockade zone, including 43 million barrels in the South China Sea, Yellow Sea and East China Sea. But with China sharply reducing its purchases, Tehran could run out of oil available for delivery to China in roughly five months if the current export rate persists.
Iran also exported around 256,000 bpd of fuel oil, or mazut, last year. Exports remained at roughly 220,000 bpd during the first two months of this year, but have plunged to just 61,000 bpd this month.
Iran had also been exporting a similar volume of LPG before the war. Those exports have now almost come to a halt.
According to Central Bank of Iran (CBI) data, the country’s crude oil and fuel oil exports were worth $57.5 billion last year, accounting for about 55% of Iran’s total exports. Crude oil, petroleum products and LPG together accounted for roughly 65% of the country’s total exports.
The sharp decline in exports of these commodities is likely not only to leave the government facing a massive budget shortfall, but also to create serious difficulties in securing the foreign currency needed to finance imports.
Iran imported nearly $78 billion worth of goods last year, including about $3 billion in gasoline, CBI data shows. Even if the country were to maintain its non-oil exports at last year’s level, they would not be sufficient to finance even half of its goods imports.
The situation is particularly difficult because Iran’s steel industry, which had generated as much as $5 billion a year in export revenues for the Islamic Republic, has been severely damaged by the recent war. The domestic market is now also facing a shortage of steel.
Iran was also a net importer of services last year, running a deficit of about $15 billion. Combined with its $78 billion in goods imports, that means Iran needed roughly $93 billion in foreign exchange to cover goods imports and its net services deficit.
Even if Iran manages to maintain its remaining non-oil exports at last year’s level, those revenues would cover only around one-third of those needs if crude oil, petroleum products, LPG and steel exports are excluded.
The pressure could increase further after US President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened an “economic D-Day” against Iran, pledging economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale after saying Tehran had failed to make a deal.
The threatened measures could make sanctions evasion more difficult and expose Iran’s already weakened foreign trade to additional challenges.
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