What happened to Iran between 2018 and 2019?

The author links to data [1], which states that Iran needs $319 / barrel oil to balance its budget. Between 2018 and 2019, this number jumped from $67 (In line with the rest of the region) to $244.

I feel like this statistic was trotted out and means something different from what I'd casually read it as.

Iranian exports fell significantly between 2018 and 2019 [2], it seems because of the fallout of the Iran nuclear deal and resumed sanctions [3]. There was a 69% decrease (1800 units to 570 units), which, means the calculated number would be ~3x higher, or about $211 a barrel. Which means the "statistic" doesn't really tell us what we think - that Iran can only profitably produce oil at >$200 a barrel - but that US sanctions have crippled Iran's ability to use oil as a primary source of national income.

To be fair, I'd love to see the author do the math on US oil. Actually, I'll take a stab at it. If the US tried to balance its physical budget (Let's say $984B in 2019 [3]) based entirely on increasing the price of current US oil exports (770,000 barrels a day [4]), how much would the price of oil need to rise?

770,000 barrels a day * 365 = 280M barrels of oil

$984B/280M barrels of oil = $3,514

The US would need to make an additional $3514 per barrel of oil to balance its physical budget, which is an increase from $63 a barrel to $3,577 a barrel.

Can you imagine a journalist writing this as a supporting figure? "US, implied to be a failing state as it is the largest number here, requires $10,000 a barrel oil to balance budget". Yes, that statement is a bit biased, but I'm willing to defend that this is how the US media most often interfaces with Iran.

One critique I would expect is along the lines of "Iran is more dependent on oil for its economy". Iran's GDP is 23% oil [6], whereas the US is around 8% [7]. I think the story still stands out as a bit insane, even if we adjust for "Expected contribution by GDP %", which would still put us well-north of $1,000 a barrel oil.

I don't mean to state that this is my fully-formed opinion, yet, but I think it is worth discussing these either (A) misleading (B) uninterpretable without far greater work "data facts" actually add little value to the story, and instead (seem to) further a narrative. This is in opposition of the traditional scientific approach, where we state our expectation and validate or invalidate that conclusion, with the author being expected to prove instead of just say something with "QED" implicitly attached. This critique, now, seeks to be a more general one: Data-driven media seems be misunderstood as a narrative where the data is in the driver's seat -- in reality it has let anyone ride shotgun as long as they get along with the driver.

[1] https://data.imf.org/regular.aspx?key=60214246

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IRNNXGOCMBD

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

[4] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42735

[5] https://countryeconomy.com/raw-materials/brent?dr=2019-11

[6] https://tradingeconomics.com/iran/gdp

[7] https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/taxes/oil-and-nat...

Edit: Formatting