25JUN

Iran oil exports fall below 300,000 bpd

3 min read

14:30UTC

Kpler and Lloyd's List data put Iran's oil exports below 300,000 barrels a day in May, down from 1.84m before the war. Some 67m barrels sit stranded in the Gulf.

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ConflictAssessed

Key takeaway

Iran's oil exports have collapsed to one-sixth of pre-war volume, with 67m barrels stranded in The Gulf.

Kpler trade intelligence and Lloyd's List maritime data found Iran's oil exports fell below 300,000 barrels per day in May 2026, down from 1.84m bpd before the war began, roughly one-sixth of the pre-blockade flow⁠¹. The lost revenue since April runs to about $5.8bn, and some 67m barrels sit stranded inside The Gulf, unable to clear the blockade.

The collapse is the revenue consequence of CENTCOM's 121-vessel naval blockade. Ship-tracking measures cargoes that move, so the figure is anchored outside Tehran's control: hard for Iran to inflate, hard for outsiders to dispute.

At a conservative $90 a barrel, Iran's monthly oil income has now fallen below what Saudi Arabia spends in a single day. Read alongside the 77.2 per cent inflation print, the two numbers approach the squeeze from opposite ends, Tehran's own statistics and independent vessel data, and meet on the same floor under the war's economic cost.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Before the war, Iran sold roughly 1.84 million barrels of oil per day on the international market. That oil was a major source of government revenue. By May 2026, exports had fallen below 300,000 barrels per day, less than one sixth of the pre-war level, because CENTCOM is blocking most tankers from carrying Iranian oil and buyers are too nervous to participate. As a result, 67 million barrels are sitting in ships and storage inside The Gulf, unable to move. Iran has lost approximately $5.8bn in revenue since April. This does not directly affect most Western consumers because global supply has been partly replaced by Saudi and other OPEC production, but it does keep Brent Crude elevated above the pre-war price and contributes to higher fuel bills across the importing world.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Iran's daily government revenue from oil has fallen from roughly $145m to roughly $25m, a structural deficit that makes negotiated settlement economically urgent for Tehran.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
The 67 million stranded barrels will create a price-suppression spike when any deal permits their release, potentially dropping Brent by $8-15 per barrel in a single trading session.
Medium term · Reported
Opportunity
China's pre-war Iranian crude contracts give Beijing leverage in any post-deal commodity arbitrage; Chinese absorption of stranded barrels may accelerate Iran's economic recovery faster than sanctions relief alone.
Medium term · Reported

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-left-leaning sources from Qatar

Qatar

Primary parallel: The 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, during which Iranian oil exports collapsed from 5.8 million bpd to roughly 700,000 bpd as buyers withdrew.

That disruption lasted 18 months before partial recovery; the 1981 Algiers Accords did not immediately restore export volumes because infrastructure damage and buyer reluctance persisted. The current sub-300,000 bpd is a more severe disruption: 1979-1981 left basic export infrastructure intact; 2026 has added physical blockade to buyer withdrawal.

Counter-parallel: Iraq's 1990-2003 oil embargo, which reduced Iraqi exports to near zero for 13 years under UN sanctions. Iraq's recovery after the 2003 invasion took until 2013 to restore pre-sanction production capacity. Iran's infrastructure damage from the February 2026 strikes is less severe than Iraq's 2003 invasion damage, but the blockade is more comprehensive than the 1990 embargo's enforcement.

Iran's pre-war export volume of 1.84 million bpd at $75-80 net realisation generated approximately $135-145m per day. At sub-300,000 bpd, the figure falls to roughly $20-25m per day, a daily revenue loss of $110-120m that has compounded since April to approximately $5.8bn total (Lloyd's List figure).

For global markets, the 1.5 million bpd supply removal is a key input to the $95-102 Brent band. Pre-conflict, Iran contributed roughly 1.5% of global supply; its removal, combined with OPEC+ production discipline, accounts for approximately $8-12 per barrel above the pre-conflict baseline.

Saudi Arabia's fiscal breakeven at approximately $87 per barrel means Riyadh does not need to increase production to maintain budget balance at current prices, reducing the pressure on OPEC+ to compensate for Iranian supply loss.

Consensus view: Kpler analyst Ana Subasic has tracked the sub-300,000 bpd figure through May, noting that most of Iran's remaining exports are informal rerouting via Oman and UAE intermediaries. Even those routes are at risk from expanded CENTCOM interdiction. The 67 million stranded barrels represent approximately seven weeks of Iran's pre-war monthly export at current prices, locked in The Gulf with no legal clearance mechanism.

Counter-view: Goldman Sachs commodities analysts have argued that the sub-300,000 bpd reading overstates the demand destruction because Chinese state refiners, the primary pre-war buyers of discounted Iranian crude, retain long-term supply agreements that create absorption pressure for the stranded barrels once any deal clears passage. China absorbed Iraqi Kurdistan's stranded oil after 2019 sanctions in a comparable arbitrage.

Key tension: Whether the 67 million stranded barrels remain inside The Gulf until a deal is signed (a pressure point on both sides) or whether China finds a route to absorb them through informal channels despite the blockade, reducing Iran's economic coercion.

Sources:Al Jazeera

Mentions:Kpler →Iran →Brent Crude →Strait of Hormuz →Ana Subasic →Lloyd's List →Kurdistan →China →Tehran →Oman →Saudi Arabia →Iraq →Goldman Sachs →OPEC →CENTCOM (US Central Command) →

First Reported In

Update #119 · Trump's Iran deal: 95% done, 0% signed

Al Jazeera· 6 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

Iran oil exports fall below 300,000 bpd

Iran's monthly oil income has fallen below what Saudi Arabia spends in a single day. The figure is anchored in independent ship-tracking, hard for Tehran to inflate or deny.

Led to

CENTCOM redirects 121 ships; Sariska V holed

Sub-300k-bpd export flow is the revenue consequence of the 121-vessel CENTCOM blockade documented

Occurred 1 Jun 2026

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Brent jumps as Iran fires from empty coffers

Iran's oil export collapse is the economic context explaining why Tehran is escalating from weakness rather than strength.

Occurred 10 Jun 2026

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Different Perspectives

Office for Budget Responsibility

The OBR's 28 October forecast assumed $82 oil for 2026 and 2027, from market prices for the ten working days to 19 August, and blamed dearer wholesale energy on the war without naming Iran. It expects CPI inflation close to 4% in early 2027 even at that price.

Hengaw, Kurdish rights group

Hengaw reported the 3 November hangings of Amirhossein Maleki and Amirhossein Ebrahimi in Isfahan, saying Ebrahimi was tortured into confessing and that nine of 12 people sentenced to death in the case have now been hanged. Iran's judiciary holds that the defendants killed members of the security forces.

FINTRAC, Canada's financial intelligence unit

FINTRAC worked with the US Treasury on the 6 November designation of eight money services businesses in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. Treasury says the businesses still operate, some under new names, so closing them falls to Ottawa.

Abdul Qadir al-Dakhil, Governor of Nineveh

Al-Dakhil cancelled three Mosul International Airport contracts on 7 November over alleged links to armed groups, after meeting Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi in Baghdad. He named no group or company, and said the contracts will go to international companies.

Kuwait

Kuwait condemned the Houthi missile fired towards the Madinah region on 5 November and restated its support for Saudi Arabia, the Qatar News Agency reported. Its state tanker company, Kuwait Oil Tankers Company, is among the Gulf state fleets on Iran's expanded Hormuz list.

Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary

Treasury designated an alleged Chandigarh false-flag network on 4 November and eight Canadian exchangers on 6 November, while State sanctioned alleged MANPADS intermediaries. None of the actions touches an oil buyer; they target the paper, cash and procurement around Iran's trade.

Written with AI from Lowdown's published reporting. Not individually reviewed by an editor. Editorial standards.