Commercial sources and analysts said that the amount of Russian and Iranian oil loaded on tankers amounted to the highest levels in several months, with the number of buyers decreased due to the tightening of US sanctions, which reduces the number of tankers available to deliver shipments and raises crude costs.
The United States has imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on ships and entities dealing with Iranian and Russian oil since October, causing trade disturbance with the two largest importers, China and India.
Last week, US President Donald Trump resumed the campaign to “maximize pressure” on Iran with the aim of reducing its oil exports to scratch to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
difficulty
Shaw Mowo, a prominent analyst at Kepler Data Analysis Company, said that the member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has had difficulty attracting new ships to bridge the gap of the ability to ship since the imposition of sanctions in the last quarter.
There is also difficulty in emptying such shipments due to the ban imposed by the Chinese Ports Group last month on the sanctions oil tankers, regarding their ports in its ports in the Shandong region, where most of the independent refineries that buy Russian and Iranian oil are located.
Primea ACM brokerage related to ships said that 57% of 126 huge oil tankers are currently participating in the crude oil trade from Iran to China are already under US sanctions.
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According to estimates of 3 analysts, the amount of Iranian oil in the floating storage increased by between 10 million and 20 million barrels since the beginning of this year, with the rise in exports and the decline in shipments to China.
However, calculating the total amount of Iranian oil in the floating storage vary – on a wide range – due to the use of analysts different methods to track the so -called shadow fleet.
Kepler data showed that the amount of Iranian oil in the floating storage exceeded 25 million barrels to reach the highest level in more than a year, with about 80% of floating charges off the coast of Singapore and Malaysia.
While Emma Li estimated the analyst at Fortaxa Analytics to track the tankers that the amount of Iranian crude oil and condensate in the floating storage amounted to 73.1 million barrels at the end of January.
She said that Iran’s exports increased for the second month in a row to 1.78 million barrels per day in January, after reaching its lowest level in two years at 1.45 million barrels per day in November.
“Smuggling methods such as disrupting transmission and reception devices and carrying out transport operations from one ship to another means that additional quantities of Iranian oil may be floating,” said Richard Bronz, head of the Geopolitical Affairs Department of Energy Aspests Consulting.
Crude oil prices increased with the decrease in the number of ships that are not subject to sanctions that hand over oil to China.
Dealers said that the discounts on the light Iranian crude have shrunk to 50 cents per barrel against Brent crude on the Intercontinental Stock Exchange to the highest level in several years compared to discounts of $ 2.50 a barrel about two months ago, on the basis of delivery from the ship in the port of arrival to the Shandong province of a shipment that is up to reach Next March.
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Russian oil
3 commercial sources said that with regard to Russian oil, the most striking sanctions imposed by the administration of former US President Joe Biden a month ago led to the high costs of refineries in China and India, where the March delivery of the March delivery mixed raw from two and 3 dollars over ore Brent on the Intercontinental Stock Exchange on the basis of delivery from the ship in the port of access to China, the largest allowance in more than two years.
The transportation costs also increased with the small number of ships available, and the cost of shipping oil from the far east of Russia to northern China amounted to about $ 4.5 million, or 3 times what it was before the latest US sanctions despite its decrease from 7 million dollars shortly after the announcement of the sanctions. .
Kepler data showed that Russian crude oil charged by sea and was not unloaded after a record of the highest level in two months at 88 million barrels on January 27, which increases 24% at its level on January 10 when the sanctions are announced.
Shu El -Mohlal told Kepler that the size had decreased since late January with the decline in Russian crude exports, while some shipments were emptied.
She added that many ships that were previously working in transporting Iranian oil have now turned into trade with Russia.
