Iran’s wartime oil shipping boom a granular look at individual ports

"Iranian Oil Production Booms Amid the Bombs," as Bloomberg News recently put it; the country rushed to export more oil following Israel's June 13 attack. (As Iranian ships continue to head to key Asian markets, crude was trading well below USD 70 per barrel at the time of writing.) Iran's oil output looks likely to surpass last year's multi-decade high -- and CEIC's granular shipping data courtesy of MarineTraffic shows users the export hubs where vessel visits have picked up.

We've charted this alternative dataset to measure port congestion; this reflects the number of vessels having to queue up and wait for a spot to load or offload.

We're zeroing into three ports in particular and drilling down into traffic by individual vessel type.

Our first chart shows activity at Asaluyeh, a key petrochemical port on the Persian Gulf. Very little port congestion was reported until mid-June. The yellow "wet bulk" category stands out; this includes crude oil.

We have also charted similar trends seen at the Persian Gulf port of Tombak, home to refineries and an LNG facility, as well as Queshm (or Qeshm Island), close to the straits of Hormuz.

Queshm is notable for a previous round of congestion in 2024, as our second chart shows; this coincided with Iran's drone and missile strikes on Israel.

Israel's attack was focused on nuclear and military sites; Iran's oil infrastructure was largely left unscathed. Meanwhile, most observers don't believe Iran will act on its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz oil export route, which would be an act of economic self-harm.

On June 24, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that China could “continue to purchase oil from Iran,” a statement seemingly at odds with his previous stances, amid speculation the US president hoped to send signals that would keep prices low. (On July 3, however, the US announced a fresh round of sanctions on Iranian crude exports.)