Iran says its oil exports around 1mn bpd; below IEA estimate

A general view of the South Pars gas field near the southern Iranian port of Assalouyeh. Iran’s oil exports remained around 1mn bpd in early 2014, Ali Majedi, Iran’s deputy oil minister for international trade, said yesterday.

Reuters/Dubai

Iran said it was exporting much less crude than the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate of around 1.65mn bpd sales in February, a reversal of its previous statements that the West is underestimating its flows.

Iran’s oil exports remained around 1mn bpd in early 2014, Ali Majedi, Iran’s deputy oil minister for international trade, said yesterday.

Under an interim deal signed in November and in effect since January 20 between Iran and six world powers - known as the P5+1 - Iran’s exports are supposed to be held to an average 1mn bpd through July 20.

The IEA’s latest monthly report revised February’s crude imports from Iran upwards by 240,000 bpd to 1.65mn bpd, the highest since June 2012.

“(Iran is exporting) around 1mn barrels per day, more or less, in February and March,” he told Reuters.

Asked about the IEA estimate, Majedi said: “I don’t think so,” adding that Iran’s oil exports had hovered around 1mn bpd for the last six months.

While recognising a rise in Iranian exports in early 2014, the US government has said it expects sales to fall in coming months and average 1mn bpd over the six-month interim deal period.

Rising Iranian oil sales have produced surprisingly little criticism so far from the West amid a worsening stand-off with another key energy exporter, Russia, over its annexation of Crimea.

In the latter half of the last decade Iran was pumping around 4mn bpd, but tough international sanctions over the past two years have cut Iran’s oil production and exports by about half.

Despite ongoing restrictions on any western investments in Iran’s energy industry, Majedi told the Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference in Dubai that Iran hopes to increase its oil production to 5mn bpd by 2018.