Asia’s oil import from Iran reached its lowest in five years in the month of May. After U.S sanctions, China and India, the biggest customers of Iranian oil reduced their import from Iran.

According to Reuters, due to U.S pressures, Japan and South Korea have completely stopped importing oil from Iran.

Iran’s oil export to its largest customers in May was reduced to 386 thousand barrels a day, which shows a 78.5 percent drop from the lowest amount exported last year.

After the U.S decision to leave the nuclear deal (JCPOA) and re-imposing the sanctions against Iran, eight countries of Japan, South Korea, China, India, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, and Greece received sanction waivers for six months in order to reduce their import. The waivers expired at the beginning of May. However, the U.S later exempted Iraq and some of the countries who had not succeeded in replacing Iran as an oil provider.

Iraq has been exempted for the third time due to its electricity shortage.

During the Obama administration, Iran’s oil export reached as high as 2.7 million barrels a day.

Iran has been seeking alternative ways to evade the sanction. Three days ago, Iranian media reported that a tanker with the cargo of almost a million barrels has left an Iranian harbor for south Asia.