Iran’s oil storage is near to the brim as sanctions curb exports and low demand amid the coronavirus pandemic forces refiners to cut throughput, industry data showed. According to the data, Iran’s total onshore crude stocks swole to 63 million barrels in June, compared to 54 million barrels in April and 15 million barrels in January. That’s roughly 85% of available onshore storage capacity in the country.
Tanker tracking data indicates that the country’s floating storage is also filling up. Iran has 54 vessels under its fleet of crude oil tankers. It uses 30 vessels, mostly supertankers which can carry up to 2 million barrels of crude, in the region. An industry survey estimated that Iran’s oil stocks in floating storage were about 50 million-57 million barrels by early July. However, it is hard to estimate the exact level of Iran’s floating storage because all of the tankers shut their AIS signals down.
The high stock level resulted in lower oil production. In June, Iran produced 3 million bpd of liquids (crude oil, condensate, and natural gas liquids), falling from 3.1 million bpd in March. Crude oil output stood at 1.9 million bpd in June, the lowest since 1981 during The Iran–Iraq War. Iran’s crude exports also fell to as low as 210,000-237,000 bpd, according to some estimates.
Meanwhile, low fuel demand amid the coronavirus pandemic forced Iranian refiners to cut their throughput. An industry survey estimated these refiners processed 1.4 million bpd of crude in May, falling from 1.8 million bpd in February before the lockdown.
