TEHRAN - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has hailed the nation’s resolve against the U.S. sanctions, saying the mentality is paying off with continued growth in oil sales.
Raisi said that Iran’s rising oil exports and its improved ability to recover export proceeds is a sign the country has been on a right path of standing up to U.S. sanctions for the past three years.
“I am sure sanctions and bottlenecks will never stop us but they make us more determined in making progress,” he said.
“And today we are witnessing the impacts of this confidence in the form of some relaxations in oil exports and recovering its revenues,’ said the Iranian president.
The comments come amid recurrent reports suggesting that Iran has managed to increase its shipments of crude to Asia and elsewhere in recent months despite sanctions imposed by the U.S. which impose heavy fines on buyers of oil from Iran.

China Ramps Up Iran Oil Purchases

A report by Bloomberg said that Iran’s crude exports to independent refiners in China had reached an average of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November.
The report, which cited figures by business data supplier Kpler, showed that Chinese purchases of Iranian crude had increased by 40% against October despite persistent trade difficulties facing companies because of the coronavirus pandemic.
That’s up almost 40% from October and the biggest volume since August. Flows may be limited in the coming months, however, in part due to a broader crackdown on independent refiners and reduced demand resulting from virus restrictions.
China’s independent refiners, known as teapots, were set for a buying spree before the end of the year as they sought to use new import allocations they received in mid-October. That put Russian ESPO oil from the Far East, which usually takes less than a week to be shipped, and Iranian crude stored on ships off China and around Singapore and Malaysia in the spotlight.
The overall volume of crude and condensate stored at sea off key Asian regions fell to the lowest level since September as of December 9, according to Kpler, which estimates that more than half of the oil in floating storage is from Iran and Venezuela. Traders say Iranian cargoes have been sold at a discount of at least $4 a barrel to the ICE Brent price.
The import figures from Kpler are at odds with official Chinese data, which indicate the nation hasn’t taken Iranian oil since December 2020. Supplies have often been re-branded as originating from Oman and Malaysia in the past.
Teapots have the flexibility to purchase cheap Iranian oil because many don’t have long-term deals with other Middle Eastern producers, unlike other Asian refiners. The independents buy cargoes via third parties that normally don’t own any assets in America, although China has opposed U.S. sanctions on Iran and accused Washington of reaching beyond its jurisdiction.