In 2021, Iran began exporting condensates to Venezuela (less than 100,000 b/d) under a swap agreement. Iran’s condensates act as a diluent for Venezuela’s extra heavy crude oil, helping to bolster Venezuela’s oil production and exports. Under the swap agreement, Venezuela sends some of its heavy Orinoco crude oil back to Iran as payment.71 As

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European countries reduced their imports of Russia’s oil, and the G-7 countries set a price cap on Russia’s oil sales. As a result, Russia significantly discounted its crude oil price. China’s independent refiners began purchasing more crude oil from Russia, which displaced som

Although Iran supplied crude oil and condensates to a variety of countries in Europe and Asia in 2017, Iran sent all of its crude oil and condensate exports to China, Syria, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Venezuela in 2023. While most of these export volumes have export destinations listed as China, in many cases the destinations are listed as

After Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports reached a low of 0.4 million b/d in 2020 due to the United States’ reimposition of sanctions in November 2018 and the decline in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic, exports recovered to nearly 1.4 million b/d by 2023. Based on tanker tracking data, China took nearly 90% of Iran’s crude oil an

Hydropower, nuclear, and non-hydropower renewables together account for the remaining 7% of Iran’s electricity generation. Although Iran generates the most hydroelectric power in the Middle East, output is susceptible to regional droughts and water shortages, which have become more frequent, especially during the summer months, in the past few ye