US sanctions failed to crimp Iran’s oil supply: Chevron CEO

CEO of US oil company Chevron said in recent remarks made to the think tank Atlantic Council that current US sanctions have not really kept Iranian barrels out of the market, but rather redirected them.

“And that is true for a lot of the sanctions that are in place right now. They haven’t really crimped supply. They’ve just redirected supply,” Michael Wirth stated.

Wirth was referring to the fact that a bulk of Iranian crude oil supplies are being purchased by private buyers in China instead of being sold to governments around the world.

Iran has ramped up its exports of oil to Chinese buyers in the past year with recent estimates suggesting current Iranian oil supplies delivered to China are at over 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd).

Importing more than 0.75 million bpd of oil from Iran, China was the largest official buyer of Iranian oil before 2018 when former US president and current president-elect Donald Trump withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed sanctions on the country.

However, the sanctions caused China to stop its official purchase of Iranian oil and instead allow its teapot refiners to buy the shipments.

Wirth, whose company is the only US firm involved in oil production activity in a sanction-hit country, made the remarks as he hopes a new administration led by Trump would adopt better policies with regard to oil supplies from countries like Venezuela, where his company is working, as well as from Iran and Russia.