US official says Iranian or suspected Iranian oil on water averaged 110 mln barrels over past week vs 180 mln barrels before war

Episodes in which a sanctioned producer's barrels shift from loadings toward on-water storage have usually signalled enforcement friction or buyer caution before they signal permanently lost supply, and the read-through hinges on whether floating barrels are waiting for discharge, blending, or re-flagging rather than production being shut in. The distinction here is between loadings, which have fallen much harder, and offloadings, which are down less severely: that pattern points to barrels being held at sea or cleared more slowly rather than a clean collapse in exports, with freight, insurance and ship-to-ship logistics doing the rationing. In prior sanctions-tightening phases, rising on-water totals have been treated as bearish for prompt availability but supportive of later dislocation risk if storage fills, while falling loadings matter more for medium-run crude supply to the usual sanctioned-barrel buyers. Official US commentary of this kind is often a precursor to designations, port-state pressure or advisories rather than an operational change by itself, so the follow-ons are any Treasury or State action, tanker fixture softness, wider discounts for Iranian grades and whether discretionary sanctioned intake slows at the margin. The established sequence is rhetoric, compliance caution among banks and insurers, higher freight and darker logistics, then either enforced curbs or adaptation through re-routing; the tell is whether offloadings keep clearing despite lower loadings.