U.S. says Iran oil exports down dramatically

(Reuters) - U.S. economic sanctions against Iran have slashed the country's crude exports and oil revenue, the U.S Treasury said on Wednesday as it vowed to keep up the pressure on Tehran to prevent the Iranian government from getting nuclear weapons.

Since the beginning of the year, the United States has threatened to block certain foreign financial entities from U.S. markets unless Iran's major trading partners reduced their purchases of Iranian crude.

U.S. efforts have paid off with Iranian crude exports down to about 1 million barrels of oil per day from the approximately 2.4 million barrels last year, the U.S. Treasury said.

"This decrease in exports is costing Iran about $5 billion a month, forcing the Iranian government to cut its budget because of a lack of revenue," said Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen in remarks to be delivered at the New York University School of Law.

U.S. sanctions were designed to crimp Tehran's oil revenues by stopping financial institutions from conducting oil transactions with Iran's central bank, which handles most of the country's oil payments.

However, if countries significantly reduced their Iranian oil imports, they won a temporary reprieve from the U.S. law. More than a dozen countries, including Iran's biggest oil buyers China and India, earned exemptions.

"Sanctions have effectively terminated international access for most Iranian banks," said Cohen. "Today, the Iranian government is relegated to the backwaters of the international financial system, and they know it."

Although U.S. sanctions have squeezed Iran from global markets, Israel has demanded that the Obama administration take a tougher line against Iran. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has accused the administration of being too tough on Israel and not hard enough on Iran.

The Obama administration recently unveiled new sanctions that target foreign banks that handle transactions for Iranian oil or handle large transactions from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) or Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO), two players in Iran's oil trade.