EMEA News
Iran Claims 80% of Pre Sanction Market Share and Wants to Double Exports
Mohsen Ghamsari, director of international affairs for state-run National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), told Bloomberg that Iran is closing in on its pre-sanctions peak and soon plans to double its crude exports.
Stating that the Islamic republic is exporting about 2 million of its daily output of 3.8 million barrels, Ghamsari said "We are not very far away from our pre-sanctions peak and we will soon attain that share; our exports peak is above 4 million barrels a day, and we have plans for that and are waiting for the right conditions."
Ghamsari is optimistic that these conditions are in place, such as the ability for global markets to absorb the additional product: "The market will stay on its present balance, and a return to prices below $30 a barrel is not very probable, at least in the current year.
"Our policy is not to stockpile oil in floating offshore storage; in other words, we produce as much as we think the market would absorb."
The NIOC official went on to say that while his company is shipping about 25 percent of its exports to European buyers but hasn't increased the number of supply contracts in Asia, which is the bigger of the two markets, "We are right now in negotiations with many companies, both in Europe and Asia."
Iran faces a host of problems in reclaiming its status as an international exporter, including the U.S. still prohibiting transactions related to Iran from being conducted in dollars, and the need for over $100 billion in investment to upgrade its oil industry infrastructure.
Still, the Islamic republic has surprised naysayers by achieving a 25 percent rise in production this year to date, and it's noteworthy that Ghamsari's remarks have not yet been accompanied by skepticism about the country's ability to reach an eight-year high for daily output of 4 million barrels by the end of 2016.
Still, there is considerable speculation that Iran may have already peaked with regards to its comeback, kindled most recently by a slip of crude exports by almost 20 percent in the first three weeks of June.
