China orders firms to ignore US sanctions on Iranian oil

US intelligence agencies assess that recent military action has caused only limited additional damage to Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported Monday, leaving Tehran’s potential timeline to produce a weapon largely unchanged.

The assessment suggests that while earlier strikes on key facilities set back Iran’s program by several months, more recent operations have not significantly extended that delay.

Officials said the program’s overall trajectory—measured in the time needed to accumulate sufficient material for a nuclear device—remains broadly intact.

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Stocks in Asia slipped on Tuesday while oil prices eased but remained well above $100 a barrel, as the United States and Iran continued to pursue a fragile truce while still trading blows around the Strait of Hormuz.

Nasdaq and S&P 500 futures edged down about 0.1%, while EUROSTOXX 50 futures lost 0.2% and FTSE futures fell 0.75%.

Oil prices retreated slightly after recent gains but stayed elevated amid ongoing uncertainty over supply disruptions in the Strait, a key global shipping route.

TankerTrackers has posted a thread on X challenging the view that Iran’s oil sector is nearing a shutdown due to storage constraints, and arguing that production can be maintained even if exports fall sharply.

The group said comparisons with the Trump administration’s first term show Iran was able to scale output to just under 2 million barrels per day and absorb much of it through domestic refining.

Data tracked since 2018 indicate exports have already declined from recent highs and are likely to fall further. Even if exports were to drop to zero, TankerTrackers said, production could still hold at roughly 1.8 to 2 million barrels per day.

It added that production may not decline as quickly as expected even in the absence of exports, if Iran can secure spare tankers and move them past US blockade.

Tasnim News, which is linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, rejected earlier US claims of hitting Iranian speedboats, asserting that US forces hit two civilian boats, killing five people and

The report cited a military source as saying that the vessels were small boats carrying goods from Khasab in Oman toward Iran when they were struck.

The source said none of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval vessels had been hit and described US accounts of targeting speedboats as “false.”

It added that US forces would be held accountable for what it described as the killing of civilians.

The assessment suggests that while earlier strikes on key facilities set back Iran’s program by several months, more recent operations have not significantly extended that delay.

Officials said the program’s overall trajectory—measured in the time needed to accumulate sufficient material for a nuclear device—remains broadly intact.

The findings follow a series of strikes in June that President Donald Trump said had “obliterated” key elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. US officials now say the impact, while real, appears to have been more limited than such claims suggested.

A key constraint, officials said, is Iran’s remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium, much of it believed to be stored in hardened or undisclosed locations beyond the reach of conventional strikes. That material, combined with surviving technical capacity, has limited the overall effect of recent attacks.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has previously assessed that Iran retains enough enriched material for multiple nuclear devices, though access for inspectors has been restricted in recent months.

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it has never sought to develop weapons, though some voices inside the country have suggested since the June war that Tehran should reconsider its stance.

The latest intelligence underscores a gap between the scale of military activity and its effect on Iran’s core nuclear capabilities, even as tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to escalate.

Trump has continued to frame the war’s central objective as preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, saying in recent days that Tehran “cannot have” one.

He has also repeatedly argued that Iran must agree to a new deal, saying any agreement he secures would be stronger than the 2015 accord reached under President Barack Obama.

Talks and exchanges of proposals in Islamabad have failed to bridge the gap between US demands and Tehran’s insistence on its right to uranium enrichment.

Officials cautioned that the situation remains fluid and that further military action, sabotage or covert operations could still affect the program’s trajectory. But for now, they said, the most recent strikes appear to have had only a limited additional impact.