Iranis exaggerating its crude oil export figures and wont be allowed to sell more than 1 million barrels a day over the next six months, U.S. officials involved in managing sanctions against the country said.Iran says it shipped 1.51 million barrels a day in November, according to figures the nation submitted to the Riyadh-basedJoint Organisations Data Initiative. The data, along with historical export figures, were published Jan. 20, the same day the U.S. and its allies temporarily eased some of the sanctions against the Persian Gulf state as part of a deal to curb its nuclear program.
The Obama administration said after the Nov. 24 accord was struck that Irans exports have been forced down to 1 million barrels a day, a reduction of more than half from 2.5 million a day before U.S. and European Union sanctions were imposed, and wont be allowed to increase before a final nuclear deal is reached and all sanctions are lifted.
Iran may be inflating its data to try to set a higher baseline for subsequent negotiations and hoping its elevated numbers will help attract overseas investors, said the U.S. government officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized comment publicly. So far, Iran hasnt challenged the 1 million barrel-a-day figure in meetings with U.S. negotiators, one of the U.S. officials said Jan. 22.
Contrasting Estimates
The Paris-basedInternational Energy Agency, an adviser to 28 nations, estimated Jan. 21 that buyers imported about 1.07 million barrels a day from Iran in 2013. In contrast, Irans own data show shipments fell below 1.5 million barrels a day only once in the past 17 months.
It creates some confusion to legitimize leakage to that level,Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH, a consultant in Zug,Switzerland, said by e-mail Jan. 20. Still, with the financial sanctions and the required waivers, it is not really Iran that decides how much it can export.
Oil pricesfell in late November following the accord to constrainIrans nuclear programin return for an easing of certain sanctions. Under the accord, Irans six remaining crude buyers -- China,India,Japan,South Korea,TurkeyandTaiwan-- will be allowed to continue buying at current levels, instead of being forced to make further significant reductions in volume, as U.S. sanctions law requires.
Energy analysts forecastBrent crudewill fall 5 percent to an average $103 a barrel in 2014, partly on bets that exports from OPEC members Iran and Libya will eventually climb, according the median of 34 estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Iranian President
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking at theWorld Economic Forumin Davos, Switzerland, yesterday, said his country has a strong will to reach a comprehensive nuclear accord. Rouhani told a meeting of about 30 executives in Davos, mostly from the oil industry, that Iran is a good place to invest.
Christophe de Margerie, chief executive officer ofTotal SA (FP), said Jan. 22 he sees potential for the French oil producer to return to Iran if the sanctions are lifted.
Some members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, notably Iran and Venezuela, regularly report output numbers that exceed consensus estimates, according to the organizations monthly reports. Export data submitted to JODI fall into the same category, according to analysts at BNP Paribas SA inLondonand IHS-PFC Energy inWashington.
OPECs monthly report on Jan. 16 said the nations December crude production was 2.73 million barrels a day when calculated using secondary sources that include analysts and news agencies. That compares with 3.22 million reported directly by Iran to OPEC, the same report showed.
Add Salt
The JODI figure has to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt, saidHarry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas. Given the source of the data, most analysts will discard the figures off the bat.
U.S. officials interviewed said their own estimates are based on customs data from importing nations, sophisticated ship tracking, intelligence reports and sources they wont disclose.
Officials at Irans oil ministry in Tehran declined to comment and said questions should be referred to the countrys oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh.
Iran had not submitted any data to JODI after oil sanctions took effect in July 2012, before resuming this month and supplying numbers dating back to May 2012.
Trevor Houser, an energy analyst and partner at Rhodium Group, a New York-based economic research firm, also said JODIs database of national statistics on production, exports and imports, arent reliable.
Self-reporting is voluntary, so when a country sees it in its interest to misreport, it does, and market participants treat JODI data with a high degree of skepticism, Houser said in an interview.
By Bloomberg
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