Iran Claims High Oil Exports While Financial Woes Continue
Iran’s oil minister Javad Owji said Sunday the country’s exports are at its highest point since 2018, claiming that $14 billion of oil revenues has been injected into the economy.
Iran’s oil minister Javad Owji said Sunday the country’s exports are at its highest point since 2018, claiming that $14 billion of oil revenues has been injected into the economy.
His claims come at a time when Iran is is serious need of hard currency, with its national currency extremely weak and volatile.
The oil minister boasted that the country has achieved the new record in exporting oil despite the US sanctions following the US pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposition of all-out measures. Owji claimed that since 2018 when the Trump administration re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic, more and more punitive measures have been put in place as European states, insurance companies, shipping companies, ports and other trade mechanisms are abiding by the US sanctions.
He said that despite the measures, the oil ministry has injected $14 billion into the country’s foreign currency trading services in the past 11 months. He added that Iran’s oil exports have increased 190 million barrels compared from two years ago -- from March 2020 to March 2021 -- and 83 million barrels more that the figure of the previous Iranian year, which ended in March 2022. "We exported 83 million more oil barrels since 21st March 2022 compared to the same period last year. This represents 190 million more oil barrels exported compared to the period March 2021 to March 2022," he said.
But bringing back $14 billion from oil exports is a fraction of what Iran needs to balance its budget, without taking into account secret military expenditures and assistance to its proxy forces in the region. Generally, an annual oil export revenue of $60 billion is considered the minimum for Iran to keep its finances afloat.
Owji did not disclose the exact number of barrels exported by the country but most of its exports go to Chinese small refineries, but it is not clear how much they pay per barrel or whether they pay in hard currencies to Iran or barter the oil with goods. Iran does not reveal how much it earns from crude oil exports, but if we take the lower estimate of 0.6 million shipments p/d and an average price of $90 p/b for 2022, revenues should total $20-22 billion for the 12 months of 2022.
While many oil industry sources say Iran exports around one million barrels of crude per day, others believe the volume is much less and the income modest.
TankerTrackers, Vortexa, Kpler, and other sources estimate Iran exported anywhere from 810,000 to 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day in recent months. Iran keeps the export volume secret, but top officials constantly claim revenues are increasing.
In recent days, Iran’s currency rial has gained against major international currencies after a political rapprochement with Saudi Arabia that unlocked diplomatic channels between the two countries after seven years. The rial closed at over 450,000 against the US dollar on Saturday, up from a historic low of 600,000 in late February.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Owji also claimed that the Islamic Republic and Saudi Arabia will bolster their cooperation in the framework of OPEC. The CEO of Saudi Arabian Oil Group -- or simply Aramco -- Amin H. Nasser says Saudi-Iran agreement to mend relations will enhance regional stability and have a positive impact on the global oil market.
He said spare capacity remained tight at 2 million barrels per day, while demand for jet fuel was increasing alongside China's re-opening from tight Covid restrictions.
"If you consider China opening up and a pick-up in jet fuels and very limited spare capacity, we are talking 2 million barrels, so as I said we are cautiously optimistic in the short to midterm and the market will remain tightly balanced," he said.
The attacks that started three months ago have continued without any apparent effort by the government to seriously pursue the perpetrators or explain to terrified parents and students what was happening in so many schools.
In its statement, the ministry attributed some of the poisoning attacks to “pranks” by students using “foul smelling and harmless substances” in an attempt to get their classes dismissed.
“Among the detainees there are individuals with hostile motivations,” the statement said, adding that these individuals meant to cause fear and panic among the people to shut down schools and cast the blame on the regime.
“These individuals are under investigation to reveal their possible connection with terrorist organizations such as the monafeghin,” the statement said. Iranian authorities always refer to the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) as monafeghin (hypocrites).
The statement reveals very little about the arrests but two days earlier the local channel of the state television in Fars province aired the so-called ‘confessions’ of a man and his daughter arrested and accused of attacking schools with N2 gas canisters. The statement provided no names for those arrested or any other information.
Many ordinary Iranians have been suspicious of involvement of the regime itself, or religious extremists protected by the regime, in the school attacks and call the acts “state terrorism”.
“There is strong suspicion that the purpose of the attacks is quashing the Woman, Life, Freedom movement by instilling fear among girls and their families,” an umbrella teachers' association said while calling the attacks “bioterrorism” and demanding Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top religious figures to condemn the attacks expressly and decisively.
Diaspora Iranian held protests Saturday in 70 cities around the world to demand action to stop the school attacks.
The ministry said in its statement that there is a “considerable drop” in school poisoning attacks although seven more schools were affected on Saturday and tens of students had to be taken to hospital.
Attacks were reported in southwestern Khuzestan province where four schools were targeted. Tens of poisoned students had to be taken to hospitals also in southern Fars, western Kordestan and in northern Gilan provinces.
In a report Saturday, the judiciary claimed that “less than ten percent” of students reported poisoned so far had inhaled “an irritant gas which is not of weapons grade or deadly” and the remaining ninety percent were only affected by stress and other psychological factors.
In an article entitled “Casting Light On Psychological Operations Of Criminals In Student Poisoning Incidents” on Tuesday, the hardliner Mashregh news website accused a banned teachers’ association of using the attacks to wage psychological war against the Islamic Republic to revitalize the protest movement.
The article claimed that it was the MEK that described the school poisonings as ‘chemical attacks’ for the first time and alleged a connection between MEK and union activists who also referred to the incidents as chemical attacks on schools.
Earlier this month, the association urged its members and others to stage protests to demand urgent resolution to school attacks as well as teacher’s own problems including a wage increase for the next year that takes the factor of inflation into account.
In response to the association’s call, teachers and parents held rallies in dozens of cities and chanted slogans such as "death to the child-killing regime".
“Think-tanks of security and intelligence bodies are projecting their own responsibility over the poisoning of students and building new legal cases against union and civil activist,” Mohammad Habibi, spokesman of the Iran Teachers’ Trade Association, said in an Instagram post Saturday.
Habibi vowed that teachers would continue to defend “our children and their achievements [in the protest movement].” “Our message to them is clear: we will not withdraw [against pressures by the security forces].”