The US blockade has kept Iranian crude exports at zero in October, according to a report from energy intelligence platform Vortexa, having plummeted in the second week of September.
In September, oil flows from the Persian Gulf excluding Iran surged to over 81 per cent of pre-war levels in September, led by a recovery in Saudi exports.
Iran’s seaborne crude exports fell to zero in the second week of September from a 14-day average of 230,000 barrels per day at the start of that month and have stayed there as of October 5, according to Vortexa.
Meanwhile Iranian crude in tankers on the water has fallen to 83 million barrels, with 43 million barrels trapped west of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US blockade.
"The blockade is doing what years of sanctions never managed: it has physically stopped Iranian crude from leaving the gulf," said Claire Jungman, Vortexa's director of maritime risk and intelligence.
Jungman added that China also no longer needs Iranian barrels as urgently as it did before because Russian crude has filled the gap.
Iran's liquefied petroleum gas exports also fell 48 per cent month-on-month, Vortexa said, to their lowest since at least January 2023.
With the drop in exports from Iran, crude from Russia makes up 80 per cent of what Vortexa describes as "high-risk exports" - from Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Combined exports from the three countries were 4.73 million bpd in September, down from 6.39 million bpd in the same month last year.
Russia's exports — excluding Caspian Pipeline Consortium and KEBCO crude — rose six per cent month-on-month to 3.79 million bpd, according to the report.
(Reporting by Seher Dareen in London; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)