Iran’s Tasnim News Agency reported on March 2. In February, Iranian crude oil exports to Asia rebounded, nearly doubling from last month. Data show that Asian crude oil imports from Iran fell to their lowest level in two months in January, with China and India slowing down their purchases, while Japan imported zero for the third consecutive month. As a result of the US sanctions, Iranian oil buyers have to overcome transportation and payment problems. China, India, Japan and South Korea, as the four largest buyers of Iranian crude oil in Asia, imported 710,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Iran in January, down 49% from the same period in 2018. In January, as the largest customer, China imported 377,000 barrels of Iranian crude oil a day, down from 500,000 barrels a day in December last year; India imported 270,000 barrels a day; South Korea resumed importing Iranian oil in January after four months of interruption, but its imports fell by 75% compared with the same period last year; Japan imported zero in January. Sources predict that Iran’s crude oil exports to Asia nearly doubled in February to about 1.38 million barrels a day, as Japan and South Korea increased Iranian crude oil purchases in the first few months of the exemption period (May this year).
| PVA 1788 (PVA BP17) |