Iran’s crude oil exports have climbed to their highest level in seven years in defiance of tightening US sanctions, maritime tracking service TankerTrackers said on November 9.

“Over the past 4 weeks, Iran has exported nearly 2.3mn barrels of crude oil per day,” the service wrote in a post on X. “These are numbers we haven't seen since the early half of 2018.”

TankerTrackers did not provide a reason for the surge, but the figures appear to back up comments made by Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad, who told state TV on October 29 that “I wish I could reveal the oil export numbers – if I did, you would realise the situation is much better than before.”

Iran has withheld official production and export figures since 2018, when the US reimposed sanctions on its oil sales, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, the US has imposed fresh sanctions on intermediaries, foreign firms, Chinese ports, and tankers involved in Iranian crude shipments.

Nearly all of Iran’s exported barrels end up in eastern China, where small private refineries known as “teapots” take advantage of heavily discounted crude to produce fuel.

According to tracking companies such as Kpler and Reuters data, those discounts have recently widened to about $8 per barrel below Brent prices.

Kpler’s data showed Iranian oil exports had fallen in recent months under increasing US pressure, averaging below 1.4mn bpd.

Despite the recent uptick, overall exports remain lower than last year, a decline reflected in Iran’s reduced oil revenues.

On October 5, Iranian lawmaker Hadi Ghavami, deputy chairman of the Parliament’s Planning and Budget Committee, said the government raked in $1.4bn from oil exports in the first half of the current fiscal year – just 32% of the amount it had forecast – blaming lower crude prices and steeper discounts offered by Tehran to its one and only buyer, China.