Oil in Global Economy Series: Iran’s oil exports suffer massive drop in September

Since August, when the first round of U.S. sanctions went live, Iranian exports have been in decline. In August, U.S. re-imposed a part of the sanctions on Iran targeting the country’s access to the USD and dollar-based financial markets. The rest of the sanctions will go into effect by early November, specifically targeting Iran oil exports and its banking sectors which will make it more difficult for Iran to find customers risking the U.S. sanctions threat.

In September, Iran’s oil and condensate exports, according to Bloomberg, declined to 1.72 million barrels per day, which is the lowest in almost two years. In July, Iran exported around 2.7 million barrels per day of crude oil and condensate. According to a separate report by Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA), in the first six months of the Iranian year (April to September), exports Iranian gas condensate declined 46 percent from a year ago. And latest Platts’ survey suggests that it is getting worse for Iran as the November sanctions loom. In the first week of October, Iran’s oil and gas exports have declined to 1.1 million barrel per day.

However, some analysts suggest that the exports are not down by that much as all the above data are based only on tracked shipments and Iran is currently using ghost ships (which switch off their tracking devises after leaving home ports) to transfer a sizable portion of its exports.