Iran says ready to increase oil exports with removal of sanctions

Iranian Minister of Petroleum Javad Owji on Saturday reiterated Iran’s readiness to increase oil exports to previous levels as soon as the unilateral sanctions on the country are lifted.

Noting that the administration of President Ebrahim Raeisi has not made the country’s major projects subject to talks underway with world powers on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal (known as JCPOA), the minister said that “had we waited for JCPOA, we would have difficulty (meeting energy needs) last winter.”

“We increased the level of reserves by 30% and passed the winter and summer without gas and electricity outages,” he added.  

Owji said that over $100 billion worth of oil and gas agreements have been reached over the past year, roughly $40 billion of which were signed with Russia’s Gazprom.

NIOC Managing Director Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr had said early in May that the company plans to increase the country’s crude oil production capacity to 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd) over the next eight years.

He said the increase in the country’s production capacity requires an increase in the capacity of export facilities.

NIOC’s Director of Corporate Planning Karim Zobeidi had earlier put the country’s current oil production capacity at 3.8 million bpd.