On June 17, negotiators initialled a memorandum of understanding that gave Iran something it had not possessed in years: the legal right to sell oil without triggering immediate American penalties. The timing was not incidental. Before a single missile was fired in late February, Iran's economy was already operating in a state of managed crisis — inflation running at close to 50%, chronic shortages of basic goods, and oil exports cut roughly in half by years of sanctions tied to its nuclear programme. The war that followed made everything worse, adding an estimated 10% contraction in economic output alongside widespread infrastructure damage and the near-total collapse of crude shipments.

At the conflict's lowest point, maritime tracking firm TankerTrackers recorded Iranian oil exports of just 64,000 barrels per day — a figure that captures, more vividly than any political speech, the scale of the damage inflicted by the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The new 60-day sanctions waivers reverse that position rapidly. They cover not only crude and refined petroleum sales but also the shipping, insurance, and banking transactions that had turned even successful oil deals into financial dead ends, with revenues stranded in Chinese escrow and clearing accounts rather than accessible to Tehran for imports or government spending. The immediate beneficiary of normalised banking flows is Iran's ability to convert oil income into usable currency.

Until now, most exports went to independent Chinese refiners at discounts of up to $15 per barrel below Brent crude — a structural penalty imposed by the need for secrecy.