Iran’s oil exports surge in August even with final week dip

Iran’s oil exports ballooned in August, even though they didn’t maintain the pace set in the first part of the month. 

The increase in Iranian shipments to the highest this year comes in the same month that key OPEC+ producers Saudi Arabia and Russia kept a lid on their own oil exports in a bid to tighten the market.

Shipments of Iranian crude and condensate climbed to 1.85 million barrels a day in August, according to TankerTrackers.com Inc., which provides data on oil cargoes to governments, insurers and other institutions.

That represents a pullback from the first 20 days of August, when exports topped 2 million barrels a day. Figures for the earlier period were likely inflated by sales of barrels in storage, according to TankerTrackers’s co-founder Samir Madani. 

Iran has been steadily ramping up its oil shipments this year, finding buyers for its discounted supplies in Asia. The country’s production is now at the highest level since a ban on its exports kicked in five years ago, with US officials privately acknowledging they’ve gradually relaxed enforcement on some of the measures.

The latest figures cover the first 30 days of August. TankerTrackers studies images from satellites and collates data manually, meaning it doesn’t rely on Automatic Identification System, or AIS, signals.