An Iranian man walks along the phase 15-16 of the South Pars gas field facilities in the southern Iranian port of Assaluyeh on the shore of the Arabian Gulf. Iran’s crude oil exports have hit 1.2mn bpd, almost doubling from eight months ago when the country elected a new president, a top government official said yesterday. Mansour Moazami, who holds the planning brief among Iran’s five deputy oil ministers, said the numbers were 20% above forecasts and they would rise further. “When the government took office, exports were around 700,000 bpd,” Moazimi was cited as saying by Mehr, a semi-official government news agency. He said the updated figure of 1.2mn was supplemented by 200,000 bpd of derivative gas products from crude.