Page 6 - MEOG Week 44 2021

MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG

Iran crude exports

to China disputed

IRAN IN a statement directly contradicting Iranian spat aside, officially Tehran has not exported any
government officials, the nation’s Fars News crude to China, an important diplomatic ally
Agency this week announced that Tehran was in 2021, at least according to China’s General
still offloading in excess of 1mn barrels per day Administration of Customs (GAC).
(bpd) of oil to China despite ongoing US sanc- This is known to be causing some embarrass-
tions on the country and others doing business ment to the more conservative elements in the
with Iran. government of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
The Fars claim came a day after Tehran’s in Tehran, who have for three years been push-
Chamber of Commerce chairman, Mr. Masoud ing for improved relations with East Asia to help
Khansari, tweeted that sales to Beijing had plum- counter the ongoing sanctions.
meted since late March – the start of the Iranian It is commonly believed, however, that Ira-
traditional calendar. nian crude is still being shipped through third-
Using the social media site to say exports had party middlemen to avoid detection in much the
“drastically dropped” across the first half of 2021, same way previously banned Chinese PV panels
when compared against 2018 figures prior to the were shipped through Taiwan, rebranded and
imposition of sanctions by the Trump Admin- then sold on to Western buyers.
istration, Khansari claimed the total amount of Fars, in backing its claim, has pointed out
crude shipped to China now stood at around that tanker tracking software and even OPEC
$11mn, equivalent to roughly 1,000 bpd. data support the fact that shipments to China
In the year before US sanctions hit, Beijing continue unabated.
purchased $9.5bn worth of crude. Earlier this year a Bloomberg report also
A day after the tweet by Khansari, Fars highlighted the possibility of middlemen
claimed that officials in the Tehran Chamber rebranding the oil as being from other nations
of Commerce had made the claim as they were in the region prior to it being shipped between
against the “neutralisation of US oil sanctions”, the two countries.
continuing: “(W)hy does an entity such as the How this plays out over the next few months
Tehran Chamber of Commerce, which is fully remains to be seen, especially in light of increas-
aware of the (full scope of the) Iran-China oil ing Chinese-US tensions over Taiwan, and
trade, try to sabotage the relations between Iran efforts to date by the Chinese Communist Party
and China in the domestic sphere with such to appease the US over Iranian sanctions by lim-
wrong information?” iting calls at Iranian ports by Chinese flagged
In the days since, Khansari has also gone on vessels and a ban on Iranian ships calling at Chi-
record as saying: “(W)ith the continuation of nese ports.
sanctions, the Iranian economy will lose more The Iranian government does not offi-
opportunities” in a thinly veiled reference to cially disclose numbers relating to oil exports,
Saudi Arabia’s increased oil shipments east to although overall petrochemical capacity
China. increased from 77mn tonnes in 2019 to 90mn
In recent months, Saudi crude exports to tonnes a year later, and is expected to reach in
Beijing have risen dramatically. Riyadh remains excess of 100mn tonnes by the end of 2021.
the largest oil exporter to China, a position it has Figures from Tehran’s Ministry of Petroleum
held for the past nine months uninterrupted, also indicate exports to be rising in a commensu-
with current figures up over 50% year on year. rate manner, rising from 20mn tonnes two years
The Fars-Tehran Chamber of Commerce ago to 25mn tonnes last year.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 44 03•November•2021