A report published Saturday by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) says that Iran exported $29 billion of crude oil, gas condensate, natural gas, and other oil products in the previous Iranian calendar year, dating from March 20, 2019 to March 20, 2020.
The figure is much less than what Iran exported in the previous year. According to the report, Iran's total oil-related exports topped $60.7 billion in 2018, and the total oil and non-oil exports last year were $59.4 billion, down 36 percent from the previous year. Meanwhile, imports of goods to the country last year totaled more than $52 billion.
From looking at the data, Iran's trade balance in terms of oil and commodity in 2019 was positive $7.1 billion, and the country's foreign trade balance in 2018 was positive at $32.6 billion.
The details of the CBI report also show that Iran imported more than $15 billion and less than $11 billion in exporting services in 2019.
As a result, Iran's total foreign trade balance is only $3 billion in favor of the country.
If the CBI's statistics are correct, Iran's oil exports total much higher than the estimates from international institutions and companies. The CBI's figures, which show that Iran exported $29 billion of various oil and gas products last year, are higher than OPEC's estimation that Iran exported closer to $18 billion dollars of all oil-related products, except for natural gas, in 2019.
Official Iranian statistics also show that last year, the country exported 17.5 billion cubic meters of gas, which, given regional prices, likely generated about $2.5 billion to 3 billion in foreign exchange for the country.
Radio Farda's exclusive data, provided by international commodity information company Kpler, shows that Iran's oil exports in 2019 averaged 605,000 barrels per day, compared to about two million barrels over the same period in 2018 and over 2.5 million barrels in 2017.
According to Kpler, Iran's average oil exports in the first half of 2019 were less than 300,000 barrels per day. In the meantime, the Tanker Tracker company, which tracks ships and vessels across the globe, recently published images showing sixteen tankers secretly transferring their cargos to other ships in the middle of seas and oceans.
The Tanker Tracker estimates that Iran's crude oil exports are probably twice what is calculated based on its data.
In the meantime, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Baqer Nobakht lamented last week that Iran had reached a situation in which the country could not sell even a drop of oil.