China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey were the only buyers of Iranian crude oil during sanction years while they were allowed to purchase an aggregate total of one million barrels per day.
As a result of international restrictions imposed against Iran, oil exports to Europe had almost reached a hiatus while Turkey, as a nation straddling eastern Europe and western Asia, would import about 60 to 100 thousand barrels of Iranian crude on a daily basis.
Obstacles on oil exports were removed upon implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) over a year ago as Tehran set about boosting exports volume in order to regain its lost markets in Asia and Europe.
Accordingly, the order to increase exports was issues and the daily amount of harvest from oilfields climbed from 2.7 million to 3.8 million barrels.
In the next step, crude exports took on an upward trend soaring to 2.1 million barrels per day from the earlier figure of one million barrels.
Consequently, Asian customers have escalated their imports of the Iranian product while Europeans have resumed the process after several years of hiatus.
Total of France was the first European company to seal a long-term oil sale contract with Iran followed by Hellenic Petroleum S.A. of Greece, Spain’s Cepsa, Saras of Italy as well as Poland’s Grupa Lotos S.A. who have all joined earlier customers of Iranian crude.
Executive Director for International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Seyyed Mohsen Ghamsari has announced that Europeans are now importing a quarter of Iran’s oil output by purchasing about 500 to 600 thousand barrels per day.
Export of crude oil fluctuates in different months based on the capacity of each refinery as some refineries purchase the product on the monthly basis while the others are likely to import oil only once every few months.