By Benoit Faucon
The value of Iran's currency jumped Saturday, reflecting a bet by traders that a U.S. waiver on sales of Iranian oil will bring an inflow of foreign currency. The rial strengthened by 6.7% to 1.559 million per U.S. dollar after the U.S. Treasury decided to temporarily suspend restrictions on Iranian crude oil already in transit.
The rial has been falling in value since the beginning of the war and this is the first time it made a large uptick, said Mustapha Pakzad, chairman of Pakzad & Co., who advises companies on Iranian geopolitics.
Iran cannot receive direct payments for its oil due to banking sanctions. But many of the intermediaries who handle the shipments abroad are connected to its government. Pakzad said he expects a large part of any proceeds to end up in military spending.
The Palau-flagged vessel Skywave, which loaded 2 million barrels of Iranian crude on March 4 and headed to China, according to commodities-data tracker Kpler, is owned by a shell company that was sanctioned by the U.S. last year as part of a network that the U.S. said was directly funding the Iranian armed forces.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2026 07:36 ET (11:36 GMT)
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