TEHRAN: Iran’s oil exports volume has hit new record of 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) with half of the amount being deployed to China and India. Following a recent announcement by Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh who said the country’s crude exports had reached 2.44mn bpd, the OPEC Affairs Department of the Ministry of Petroleum has reported on a new record in crude oil sales as quoted by secondary sources.
Accordingly, the volume of Iran’s oil exports amounted to 2.608mn bpd which marks a new record in crude sales since the Islamic Revolution began. The remarkable point about the rise in exports of Iranian crude oil is that the sales volume increased by 595 thousand bpd in August as compared to the earlier month of July. China marked the largest buyer of Iran’s oil by importing about 744 thousand bpd of the Iranian product by the end of August and the figure indicates a 180-thousand-barrel uplift as compared with July.
India falls behind China to become the second major customer of Iranian oil by purchasing a total of 610 thousand barrels per day. Presently, China and India are enjoying 52 per cent of the share in Iran’s crude oil market with Chinese and Indian buyers accounting for 29 and 23 per cent of the aggregate total of Iran’s petroleum exports. On the other hand, despite the upsurge in exports to India and China, Iran’s crude sales to Japan and South Korea followed a downward trend in July, 2016.
Iran’s crude export to Japan and South Korea shrank by 21,000 and 13,000 barrels per day respectively to stand at 236,000 and 278,000 bpd. Japan and South Korea are currently enjoying nine and eleven per cent of the share in the Iran’s crude market. Turkey, as yet another traditional customer of the Iranian oil, increased its volume of oil imports from Iran by 91 thousand bpd to receive a total of 194 thousand bpd which covers seven per cent of Iran’s total crude export market.
The country’s petroleum exports to Europe rose by 152 thousand barrels per day to hit an aggregate total of 378 thousand bpd for Europeans to claim 15 per cent of the share in the Iranian oil market. All in all, reports reveal that the volume of Iran’s crude exports experienced a dramatic upsurge in August 2016 though the exports figure is anticipated to be further boosted once new projects due to implementation of new projects to increase oil production at Iranian fields.
