New data by a major tanker tracking service show that Iran’s oil exports to China dropped significantly in November amid a rise in domestic demand for energy as well as regional tensions that affected the transport and removed customers from the market.
The data from Kpler, covered in a Saturday report by the Fars news agency, showed that Iranian oil exports to China had reached an average of 1.31 million barrels per day (bpd) in November, down 0.524 million bpd from October and the lowest reported in four months.
Kpler, a data analytics firm headquarters in Brussels, blamed the fall on a shortage of feedstock at Iranian refineries, geopolitical tensions, and new US sanctions affecting Iran’s arrangements for transporting oil to Chinese customers.
It said that Iran’s floating oil supplies near Singapore and Malaysia had increased because of declining deliveries to China.
However, Fars News Agency said that a sudden fall of government in Syria had caused more Iranian oil shipments to be rerouted to China, giving the Chinese customers increased negotiating power on prices.
Iran has been supplying a bulk of its crude oil to private buyers in China in the past years to avoid US sanctions that restrict its deliveries to state buyers.
Iran’s oil exports to China reached record levels in recent months, a major sign that US sanctions had effectively failed to remove the Iranian supplies from the markets.