Iran is exaggerating its crude oil export figures and won’t be allowed to sell more than 1 million barrels a day over the next six months, U.S. officials involved in managing sanctions against the country said.
Iran says it shipped 1.51 million barrels a day in November, according to figures the nation submitted to the Riyadh-based Joint Organisations Data Initiative.
The data, along with historical export figures, were published Jan. 20, the same day the U.S. and its allies temporarily eased some of the sanctions against the Persian Gulf state as part of a deal to curb its nuclear program.
The Obama administration said after the Nov. 24 accord was struck that Iran’s exports have been forced down to 1 million barrels a day, a reduction of more than half from 2.5 million a day before U.S. and European Union sanctions were imposed, and won’t be allowed to increase before a final nuclear deal is reached and all sanctions are lifted.
Iran may be inflating its data to try to set a higher baseline for subsequent negotiations and hoping its elevated numbers will help attract overseas investors, said the U.S. government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized comment publicly. So far, Iran hasn’t challenged the 1 million barrel-a-day figure in meetings with U.S. negotiators, one of the U.S. officials said Jan. 22.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency, an adviser to 28 nations, estimated Jan. 21 that buyers imported about 1.07 million barrels a day from Iran in 2013.
In contrast, Iran’s own data show shipments fell below 1.5 million barrels a day only once in the past 17 months.
“It creates some confusion to legitimize leakage to that level,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH, a consultant in Zug, Switzerland, said on Jan. 20. Still, “with the financial sanctions and the required waivers, it is not really Iran that decides how much it can export.”
Oil prices fell in late November following the accord to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in return for an easing of certain sanctions. Under the accord, Iran’s six remaining crude buyers — China, South Korea, Turkey and Taiwan — will be allowed to continue buying at “current levels,” instead of being forced to make further “significant reductions” in volume, as U.S. sanctions law requires.
Energy analysts forecast Brent crude will fall 5 percent to an average $103 a barrel in 2014, partly on bets that exports from OPEC members Iran and Libya will eventually climb, according the median of 34 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
