Iran’s crude oil exports have climbed to their highest level in seven years in defiance of tightening US sanctions, maritime tracking service TankerTrackers said on Sunday.
“Over the past 4 weeks, Iran has exported nearly 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day,” the service wrote in a post on X. “These are numbers we haven’t seen since the early half of 2018.”
TankerTrackers did not provide a reason for the surge, but the figures appear to back up comments made by Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad, who told state TV on October 29 that “I wish I could reveal the oil export numbers – if I did, you would realize the situation is much better than before.”
Iran has withheld official production and export figures since 2018, when the United States re-imposed sanctions on its oil sales, citing the sensitivity of the issue.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, the US has slapped fresh sanctions on intermediaries, foreign firms, Chinese ports, and tankers involved in Iranian crude shipments.
The Trump administration has vowed to push Iran’s crude sales to “zero” but to no avail.
Nearly all of Iran’s exported barrels reportedly end up in eastern China, where small private refineries known as “teapots” process the shipment to produce fuel.