Iran Regime’s Oil Exports to Drop Significantly by End of Year
By Mahmoud Hakamian
The US State Department recently announced that the United States wants to see imports of Iranian oil reduced to zero. Not long after the announcement was made, several foreign countries had already started to prepare for this.
Experts are now saying that by the end of 2018, oil exports from Iran could drop by as much as two-thirds. The oil market is already under huge strain because of oil supply outages in other parts of the world, so the Iran situation will only add to the supply shortages.
Washington had initially said that it wanted a complete halt to Iran oil imports and it said that no waivers or exceptions would be granted. However, given the complexity of the situation, the U.S. stance has significantly eased and the administration has announced that some allies that are dependent on Iran’s oil may be excluded.
Nevertheless, experts say that sanctions are still going to have a major impact on Iran’s crude oil exports. It is expected that the worst-case scenario would see a drop to about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Facts Global Energy (FGE), an energy consultancy company, believes that the small amount of exports mentioned above would mostly be allocated to China. Other countries that may benefit from a waiver would also receive some of this. It could include Turkey and India.
The FGE also believes that 100,000 barrels per day of condensates could end up in China and potentially Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Some predict that China will ignore U.S. sanctions and continue to import Iranian oil. China is currently the biggest importer of Iran’s oil. South Korea, Japan and Turkey are the next biggest importers. It was reported last week that Japan will comply with the U.S. sanctions and will halt all transactions with Iran.
South Korea has also said that unless it gets a waiver from the United States it will completely halt its imports of Iran oil.
Europe is also a sizeable importer of Iranian oil and several European countries have already started to cut their imports significantly, apart from Turkey that has said it has no intentions of cutting ties with Iran.
The people of Iran are supportive of the sanctions as they know that the Iranian regime is using the revenues from oil to fund wars across the region and to finance terrorism and numerous proxy groups and militias.
The Trump administration is taking a tough stance towards Iran and it is not allowing the regime to benefit from any more policies of appeasement. Trump has criticised the regime for taking advantage of the nuclear deal and he has blamed the previous U.S. administration for wasting the opportunity to thoroughly tackle Iran’s belligerence.
At the end of last year, the people of Iran took to the streets in what has become the biggest uprising in recent history in the country. They have been calling for regime change as they see this is the only way of securing a more prosperous future. They want a leadership that will not plunder the country’s natural resources and one that respects freedom, democracy and human rights.
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