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LONDON (Reuters) - Iran has slashed crude oil production to its lowest level in four decades as storage tanks and vessels are almost completely full due to a fall in exports and refinery run cuts caused by the coronavirus pandemic, industry data showed.

FILE PHOTO: A general view of Abadan oil refinery in southwest Iran, is pictured from Iraqi side of Shatt al-Arab in Al-Faw south of Basra, Iraq September 21, 2019. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani/File Photo

Total onshore crude stocks surged to 54 million barrels in April from 15 million barrels in January, and swelled further to 63 million barrels in June, according to FGE Energy.

Market intelligence firm Kpler estimated Iranian average onshore crude storage for June to be around 66 million barrels.

That is around 85% of available onshore storage capacity.

(Graphic: Iranian onshore crude oil storage, here)

However, it will technically not be possible to fill tanks to 100% given technical constraints at storage tanks and potential infrastructure bottlenecks, said Homayoun Falakshahi, a senior analyst at Kpler.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have ratcheted up since 2018, when the United States withdrew from a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six major powers and President Donald Trump reimposed sanctions on Iran, hammering vital oil exports.

Irans floating storage is also filling up. Shipping sources said Iran was estimated to be using in the region of 30 tankers to store oil most of them supertankers, each of which can carry a maximum of 2 million barrels of oil.

This would equate to over 50 million barrels of oil being stored, which has been static for some months. This is likely to be a combination of crude and condensate, a very light grade of crude, the sources said.

Refinitiv data showed a maximum of 56.4 million barrels were being held in floating storage by July 3.

Irans fleet of crude oil tankers numbers 54 vessels, data from valuations specialist VesselsValue showed.

Iran storage is expected to continue as we do not see these vessels being able to trade anytime soon, a spokesman for shipping group NORDEN said.

The exact number of Iranian vessels on floating storage is a bit of a black box as they have all turned off their AIS signals, he said, referring to a vessels tracking transponder.

The oil ministry is trying to manage crude stocks by shutting more production.

Irans total liquid production - including crude oil, condensate and natural gas liquids - fell from 3.1 million barrels per day (bpd) in March to 3 million bpd in June, according to FGE. The firm predicts the production will fall by another 100,000 bpd in July.

Crude production was as low as 1.9 million bpd in June, according to Reuters OPEC survey. That was almost half of Iran's production in 2018, and the lowest level since 1981, the beginning of Iran's war with Iraq and attacks on its oil facilities, according to OPEC data. (Graphic: Iran oil production, here)

Iranian exports also fell to new lows as an oversupplied market and the coronavirus pandemic made it harder for Tehran to find customers willing to take its sanctions-hit oil.

Iranian crude exports were around 100,000 bpd in May, according to Kpler, and around 210,000 bpd according to FGE, reaching a new low, and a fraction of the more than 2.5 million bpd that Iran shipped in April 2018.

Kpler estimated June crude exports at 237,000 bpd and FGE at

210,000 bpd.

In the absence of official data, estimates are usually based on cargo tracking and could be subsequently revised.

Condensate stocks have also skyrocketed and are still rising. Managing the condensate inventories would be more difficult for Iran, analysts said, as they were byproduct of gas production that the country is heavily reliant on.

We still see Irans condensate stocks to continue building and approaching critical levels within the next 12 months, FGE said.

Irans domestic products demand, especially gasoline, also dropped in first half of 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns, putting more pressure on the inventories.

Iran is a coronavirus hot spot in the Middle East with more than 11,000 reported deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

As the result, Irans refinery runs significantly dropped in the second quarter of 2020.

Refinery intake for crude fell to 1.4 million bpd in May from 1.5 million bpd in April, FGE estimated. The intake was almost 1.8 million bpd in February before the lockdown.

(Graphic: Iran Crude & Condensate Stocks Outlook, here)

Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Jonathan Saul, additional reporting by Alex Lawler; editing by David Evans

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Iran's oil storage almost full as sanctions and pandemic weigh - Reuters

Irans controversial former president is reportedly set to offer to negotiate a peace settlement between warring groups in Yemen, but he may find no takers in either the Arabian Peninsula or his own government.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a one-time firebrand who served as Irans president from 2005 to 2013, plans to send letters to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the leader of Yemens rebel Houthi movement and Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, offering to mediate an end of the conflict, several Iranian news websites cited an informed source close to the former official as saying.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched a war in Yemen in 2015 after the Iranian-backed Houthi militia took control of the countrys capital, Sanaa, from the internationally recognised government. The conflict has since turned the country into the worlds most dire humanitarian crises, according to the UN.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

According to the source close to Mr Ahamadinejad, the letters would be followed by the formation of a mediation commission that would oversee peace talks. Citing an unnamed source, Independent Persian journalist and scholar Arash Azizi said Mr Ahmadinejad had asked former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammad to join the mediation panel.

Mr Ahmadinejads letters have yet to be publicly released. But a senior official of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, now based in the city of Aden, quickly dismissed any talks.

The best thing Iran could do to Yemen is to stay away from Yemen and to stop their support for the Houthis, Yemeni foreign minister Mohammed al-Hadhrami told the Independent.

It also remains unclear if Mr Ahmadinejad understands the extraordinary complexity of Yemens conflicts, which include battles between UAE-backed southern separatists and the pro-Saudi government in Aden and a military effort to defeat Al Qaedas local branch.

Mr Ahmadinejad, the first non-cleric to become president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, also lacks credibility in his own country. He was a noisy populist hardliner in office but managed to alienate both reformists and conservatives with his disruptive foreign and domestic policies. Under his presidency Iran drastically expanded its nuclear programme and increased hostility with the west while damaging Irans economy with pricey handouts that fuelled inflation.

During his presidency, he frequently wrote letters to world leaders requesting dialogue, but was frequently ignored.

At 63, Mr Ahmadinejad, who is also a former mayor of Tehran, has been struggling to redefine himself and remain in the public limelight.

His attempt to run for the presidency in 2017 was thwarted by the Council of Guardians, which vets Iranian candidates for national office. He has sought to generate buzz through social media, praising professional athletes, quoting American rap stars and commenting on world affairs.

What sin have the people of Kashmir, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and the people of the Ninth Ward [of New Orleans] and those of the South Side of Chicago committed to live under such an inhuman world system of governance? he wrote last year on Twitter.

Some analysts have suggested Mr Ahmadinejad may be preparing a 2021 presidential bid. Earlier this week he decried a potential long-term deal between Iran and China, saying it would allow Beijing to economically exploit the country.

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Irans controversial former president to offer to mediate in Yemen war, reports say - The Independent

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News Update: Iran blames bad communication, alignment for jet shootdown, bicyclist hit by car, Tyson moving toward meat cutting robots - KCTV Kansas...

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex speaks ahead of International Womens Day (IWD) held on Sunday 8th March, on March 6, 2020, in London, England.Photo: Ben Stansall (WPA Pool (Getty Images)

Love her, hate her, ambivalent or as yet undecided, Meghan Marklealso known as the Duchess of Sussexis a household name we should all be well accustomed to hearing by now. And as weve previously reported, since she and husband Harry have recently signed to leading speakers bureau the Harry Walker Agency, we should also get accustomed to hearing more of both of them for the foreseeable future.

But should you want to hear this household name from the comfort of your own home, on Wednesday, the Girl Up campaign announced Markle will be appearing at their virtual Leadership Summit, a three-day online event taking place from July 13-15.

As reported by PureWow:

According to the organizations official website, Girl Up is an initiative that has worked with 65,000 girls via 3,500 clubs in nearly 120 countries and all 50 United States to inspire a generation of young women to be a force for gender equality and social change. The event will be one of the duchesss first public speaking engagements since stepping away from the royal family.

G/O Media may get a commission

Of course, the duchess is only one of several dynamic women (and men!) speaking and presenting at this years event, including Michelle Obama, Storm Reid, Steph Curry and Monique Coleman (Disneys High School Musical) and more.

The coolest part? You can bring all this girl power home for freeand its not too late to register! You find out more, donate and get tickets at the Girl Up website.

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Who Run the World? Meghan Markle, Michelle Obama and More to Appear at the Virtual Girl Up Leadership Summit - The Root

No tights, no flights: so far this has been a summer unusually light on blockbuster superhero entertainment. Amazonian sequel Wonder Woman 1984 was originally scheduled to hit cinemas in June before being pushed to October. The Marvel Cinematic Steamroller has hit pause: when Scarlett Johanssons Black Widow belatedly arrives in November, it will be the longest gap between Marvel movies in a decade.

Thankfully, one small-screen superhero series has overlapped neatly with lockdown, even if its oddball cast of boozy do-gooders and aggrieved demon-slayers cannot boast the kind of brand recognition that gets your likeness plastered on pyjamas and lunchboxes. DCs Legends of Tomorrow recently wrapped up its fifth season on Sky, bringing some much-needed levity to the often po-faced world of fighting crime in form-fitting costumes.

Compared with the various other shows that have sprouted from the brooding vigilante series Arrow an expanding TV universe that now directly interconnects The Flash, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Batwoman and more Legends of Tomorrow has always been something of an outlier. Partly that is because of its team-based premise, tasking a grab-bag of C-listers with hopping around history to protect the integrity of the time stream in a whizzy spaceship called the Waverider. If that sounds like it has some overlap with Doctor Who, the slightly stodgy early seasons encouraged the comparison by casting former Tardis companion Arthur Darvill as the squads swashbuckling leader. While the hooded anti-hero Arrow was stuck protecting his home city, the Legends could theoretically go anywhere and any-when, with the team theoretically blending in thanks to a dressing-up box worthy of Mr Benn.

Since its debut in 2016, Legends of Tomorrow has operated as a sort of Ucas clearing house for guest heroes and villains who have wrapped up their arcs on related shows. After the supernatural series Constantine was cancelled in 2015, the title character an entertainingly aggro English exorcist who likes to pick fights with diabolical hellspawn later materialised on the Waverider and has stuck around ever since. Its all part of the rather back-handed compliment of being recruited into the squad: you can be safely removed from your own time without fear of disrupting anything major, so habitual under-achievers suddenly become prime candidates.

This pick-and-mix approach and constant turnover of personnel means that each season essentially stands alone, so even though all five are currently available to binge on Now TV you can basically dive in anywhere (maybe skip the first episode of season five, which wraps up an epic but confusing five-part crossover). As well as smart-mouthed warlock Constantine, the current lineup includes a hard-drinking bisexual ninja, a high-fiving bro of steel, various incarnations of an Egyptian wind god and a beefcake career arsonist played by Prison Breaks Dominic Purcell who has a secret double-life as a bestselling romantic novelist.

Legends of Tomorrow has always been self-aware and keen to send up superhero tropes, but this year it embraced its sitcom side more than ever, signalled with its updated credits sequence. The formerly whooshing sci-fi titles were replaced with a scrappy animated collage that crackles with punky energy.

The shows previous high watermark of daftness came in season three, when the team took on a telepathic super-ape called Gorilla Grodd who had beamed to Chicago 1979 to assassinate a lanky law student named Barack Obama while declaring it was time to make America Grodd again. But season five has taken some even bigger conceptual swings while cleverly cooking up a plausible monster-of-the-week formula: some of the worst offenders in hell are granted a second chance at life, requiring the Legends to pinball around time taking out older and wiser versions of Rasputin, Bugsy Siegel, Marie Antoinette and more.

There has even been some pushback at those who complain that culture is now too saturated with superheroes, with an impromptu 16th-century stag do getting so out of hand that Shakespeare is inspired to start writing plays about costumed avengers, beginning with Romeo v Juliet: Dawn of Justness. The penultimate episode goes even more meta, trapping the various Legends in different TV shows a Friends-alike sitcom, a mannered Downton spoof and a retro Star Trek analogue created to entertain the brainwashed masses of a 1984-style dystopia.

Self-indulgent nonsense? Perhaps, but as other heroes go super-gritty its refreshing to be reminded that these sorts of stories can be heightened, colourful and fun. The good-time crew of the Waverider drink constantly, get high and make messy decisions. When things do go wrong, the stakes feel high because you genuinely like and care for these goofballs. In a summer notably light on laughs, their adventures have been a genuine tonic.

All five seasons of DCs Legends of Tomorrow are currently available on Now TV

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Obama v a giant gorilla: here's why you should watch Legends of Tomorrow - The Guardian