Seyyed Mohsen Ghamsari, Executive Director for International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), made the remarks adding “presently, the average volume of oil exports to Asian countries stands at more than 600 thousand barrels per day.”
He further touched upon recent crude sails to small Chinese refineries noting “these figures are excluded from overall statistics since small firms purchase products through spot contracts.”
The official also said the volume of the country’s crude exports will rise by 150 to 300 thousand barrels by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (began March 20); “nearly 62 per cent of Iranian crude is being deployed to Asian markets while the rest ends up in Europe and the proportion will remain constant in case of any upsurge in export figures.”
China remained largest buyer of Iranian crude during sanction years enjoying 40 per cent of the share (equal to 400 thousand barrels per day) in Iran’s crude exports.
Ghamsari had previously said Iran is presently exporting 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day but the figure could be well increased to 2.35 million barrels.
On the crude oil exports to Europe, he said that 600 to 650 barrels of crude oil is exported to Europe per day.
Iran has announced the plan to increase its oil output to four million barrels per day by the end of the present year while the current figure stands at about 3.85 million barrels.