Iran’s Crude Oil Exports Set For 14-Month Low In May

Iran’s crude oil exports in May will likely hit their lowest volume in 14 months, as the Islamic Republic has cleared tanker storage and Asian buyers are set to load less crude, Reuters reported on Friday, citing a person familiar with Iran’s tanker loading program.

Iran’s crude oil exports in May are expected to come in at 1.66 million bpd, and nearly 100,000 bpd will be put back into storage on tankers, according to Reuters’ source.

For April, Iran is seen exporting 1.8 million bpd of crude oil and around 370,000 bpd of condensate. This compares to exports of crude and condensate combined of almost 2.9 million bpd in February, which marked a six-year high, Reuters data show.

Next month, Iranian shipments of crude oil to India are set to be around 370,000 bpd, a one-year low, as Iran and India are in the midst of a political row that threatens to reduce Indian purchases of Iranian oil. According to media, Indian state refiners have threatened to cut oil imports from Iran by 20 percent in financial 2017/18, as India pressures Iran to award the Farzad B gas field to an Indian consortium.

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Iran’s crude sales to Japan in May are expected to drop more than half from April, to 40,000 bpd next month, according to Reuters.

Iran’s crude oil exports touched the 3-million-barrel-day level for one day between February 20 and the beginning of March, reaching that threshold for the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Bloomberg reported in early March, quoting Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying to state news agency IRNA. According to Bloomberg tanker data, Iranian crude oil exports had been an average 2.45 million bpd between February 19 and early March.

According to S&P Global Platts data, Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports in March fell to 2.35 million bpd from 2.41 million bpd in February.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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