According to Platts, an industry newsletter that tracks monthly oil production by all OPEC members, Iran’s production fell to 2.750 million barrels a day in August, a drop of almost a quarter from last December’s 3.550 million.
The drop in production is directly a result of Iran’s inability to sell a majority of the oil it is able to produce for export. Sales in the first half of 2011 ran at 2.5 million barrels a day. Sales last month were about 1.1 million barrels, according to the latest report from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA).
The August exports of 1.1 million were a marked increase from the 930,000 barrels day sold in July, the IAEA said.
Iran’s PressTV touted the fact that the IEA said Iran’s oil exports rose in August and would likely rise some more in September. But PressTV neglected to report that the IEA said the rise would be temporary and that exports would likely fall later in the year.
The IEA said the biggest sales increases for Iran in August were an additional 150,000 barrels a day to Turkey and an added 100,000 barrels a day to Malaysia. But that jump of 250,000 barrels a day was offset by cuts elsewhere of 80,000 barrels day.
In Tehran, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi continued whistling passed the cemetery, saying that Iran’s oil industry had frustrated Western efforts to cut into Iran’s oil market. He even predicted that Iranian output would rise 1 million barrels a day over the next three years.
Of considerable interest, Iran’s loss of exports is not being made up primary by increased Saudi production. The Saudis announced early in the year that they would boost output as needed by the market. But they haven’t seen that much demand. Saudi output averaged 9.750 million barrels a day in the last half of 2011. But Saudi output has been fairly steady at just 10 million barrels a day the past six months.
The world simply has not had much of a problem replacing Iranian oil. That is due partly to production rises all around the world and partly to the flaccid world economy; even China’s growth rate has slowed, and, with it, demand for oil.