A US naval blockade of Iranian ports has shrunk Tehran’s oil exports, stranding a growing stockpile of crude on tankers as Iranian storage sites run out of space, shipping data showed and analysts said, according to Reuters.

With some vessels switching off tracking systems and US forces turning back Iranian tankers, how much crude Iran is delivering to customers, particularly its main customer China, is impossible to measure.

Just a handful of carriers carrying Iranian crude have left the Gulf of Oman between April 13-25, oil analytics firm Vortexa says. That’s down over 80 per cent from a comparable period in March, when Iran exported 23.4 million barrels, LSEG data shows.

“At this stage, we estimate that around 4 million barrels of Iranian crude has successfully moved out of the Gulf of Oman. We are not currently able to confirm whether any of those vessels have since been interdicted,” it says in an email to Reuters.

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