TEHRAN - National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) figures has showed that the country’s overall exports of crude oil, petroleum products, gas, condensates, liquids and LPG have reached 2.23 million barrels of crude oil per day (bpd), which is the same figure as before the sanctions.
They totaled $14.35 billion in the first quarter of the current Iranian year which ends on March 20, averaging $154 million a day.
“Assuming crude at $80 a barrel, this amount of revenue is equivalent to the export of 1.92 million barrels of oil a day,” it added.
According to customs statistics, Iran’s total income from exports of liquefied petroleum gas in the nine months of 2022 also amounted to $6.8 billion, up 86% against the same period the year before. This translates to 313,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Iran’s draft state budget is based on shipments of 1.4 million bpd, the Fars news agency reported last week.
On Sunday, Reuters news agency said Iranian oil exports hit new highs in the last two months of 2022 and are making a strong start to 2023 despite U.S. sanctions.
Following Trump’s removal of the United States from the nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions, Iran’s crude exports fell back to as little as 100,000 bpd at times in 2020 from over 2.5 million bpd in 2018.
Exports have risen during the term of President Ebrahim Raisi, and hit the highest since 2019 on some estimates. This comes despite headwinds such as a stall in those talks and competition from discounted Russian crude.
Energy consultant SVB International, cited by Reuters, said Iran’s crude exports in December averaged 1.137 million barrels per day, up 42,000 bpd from November and the highest 2022 figure.
“January exports are so far strong like previous months,” Sara Vakhshouri of SVB told the news agency.
Asked to comment on the rise, Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokesperson at the White House, said the Biden administration’s enforcement of the sanctions was robust, and that “Iran’s macroeconomic figures clearly bear this out.”
Consultant Petro-Logistics, which tracks oil supply, said it was also seeing an upward trend in Iranian crude exports which, in its view, in December reached their highest level since March 2019.
Kpler, a data intelligence firm, put Iranian crude exports at 1.23 million bpd in November, the highest since August 2022 and almost on a par with April 2019’s rate of 1.27 million bpd.