Iranian exports of crude oil fell sharply again in April and could be down by as much as 1 million barrels a day this quarter as many countries reduce imports ahead of sanctions that come into effect on July 1, the International Energy Agency said Friday.

Iran 's oil production remained steady at 3.3 million barrels a day in April, but it did not sell 15% to 25% of that oil and instead pumped it into floating tanker storage, the IEA said. The country could only keep this up for a couple of months before filling its storage and having to shut down fields, said David Fyfe, head of the oil markets division at the IEA.

This fresh data from the IEA, which represents the interests of major energy-consuming rich countries, shows how the economic pressure of Western sanctions is ratcheting up ahead of crucial talks on Iran 's nuclear program in Baghdad later this month.

It also shows how, due to oil production increases from other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, sanctions should be able to proceed without hurting oil consumers.

"There is enough room between the level of OPEC production and the level of the call on OPEC [oil] to allow for a greater disruption to Iranian supplies," said Olivier Jakob, Managing Director of consultancy Petromatrix.

In order to either dodge sanctions or obscure their impact, Iran 's fleet of oil tankers have started to play "hide and seek" by disabling their tracking beacons, the IEA said in its monthly oil market report.

Out of 38 Iranian oil tankers, only one is currently broadcasting its location, according the tracking service Marine Traffic. The lack of data makes it difficult to precisely determine how badly the sanctions are affecting Iran 's oil earnings.

In official submissions to OPEC, the Iranian authorities claim to have actually increased oil production by 38,000 barrels a day since the new sanctions were agreed in January, to 3.8 million barrels a day in April. OPEC's own analysts, using secondary data sources, estimate that Iran 's oil production has fallen by 152,000 barrels a day since January to 3.2 million barrels a day in April.

Preliminary trade figures show the Islamic Republic's crude exports fell by 600,000 barrels a day to 1.6 million barrels a day in April, a shipping source told Dow Jones Newswires last week.

Based on the average price of Iran 's main heavy-crude export grade, a drop in exports of this size would have lost the country around $2 billion in revenue.

A top Iranian oil official declined to comment on the latest IEA data. Other oil officials in Tehran confirmed last week to Dow Jones Newswires that the amount of oil the country is storing in ships doubled to 24 million barrels between March and late April.

If Iran fills its storage and is forced to shut down fields, it could have effects beyond lost export earnings, said Fyfe. Domestic natural gas supply, which also comes from oil fields, could be affected and there is a danger of long-term damage to the productivity of older fields, he said.

The oil market should still be able to cope with the withdrawal of as much as 1 million barrels a day of Iranian crude without dipping into oil stocks, despite supply and demand being "marginally tighter" in the second half of the year, Fyfe said.

The IEA slightly increased its estimate of global demand for OPEC crude in the second half of the year to 30.8 million barrels a day, but production from the group in April was 31.89 million barrels a day. "OPEC's Gulf producers appear to have ramped up output ahead of the anticipated disruption in Iranian crude flows," the IEA said.

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