No Limitation to Iran’s Oil Exports: Minister

Namdar Zanganeh on Thursday told reporters that the Geneva Agreement (signed last November between Iran and the world powers) makes no mention of limits on Iran’s crude oil exports.

“Iran has made no agreement in Geneva on the level of (its) oil exports. We will not accept any limitations on our oil exports dictated by others,” he stated on the sidelines of his visit to the 19th International Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition in Tehran.

Namdar Zanganeh reiterated that Iran will supply its crude oil to the market at the maximum level possible.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) in November last year signed an interim deal, known as Geneva Agreement, on Tehran’s nuclear peaceful nuclear program.

Based on the interim deal (the Joint Plan of Action), the world powers agreed to suspend some non-essential sanctions and to impose no new nuclear-related bans in return for Tehran’s decision to suspend its 20% enrichment for a period of six months.

The breakthrough deal, which has come into effect since January 20, stipulates that over the course of six months, Iran and the six countries will draw up a comprehensive nuclear deal which will lead to a lifting of the whole sanctions on Iran.

Following partial relief in the anti-Iran sanctions, oil giants, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP), Malaysia’s Petronas, Spain’s Repsol, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni, have shown interest in returning to the Iranian market.

Meanwhile, Iran’s crude oil exports have reached 1.2 million barrels per day.

Mansour Moazzami, deputy oil minister for planning and supervision on hydrocarbon resources, last month said the country’s oil exports have soared to 1.4 million bpd, including 200,000 barrels of gas condensate per day.