Five years after the sanctions from the world powers, Iran has sent out its first crude oil to Europe. The shipment was only one month after a landmark nuclear deal achieved.
According to Deputy Oil Minister Rokneddin Javadi, as stated in CNBC, has declared that this shipment was the first in five years and denoted "a new chapter" for oil industry in Iran.
He didn't explain further, however, IRNA pointed out that a few western tankers have stacked Iran's oil lately. Iran arranges to produce an additional one million barrels of oil to execute the nuclear deal, in which the world power stopped the international sanctions while Iran's nuclear activities were limited.
The sanctions lifting is very important for Iran because it will enable them to reach the abroad assets and trade crude oil with more freedom. There are some countries that have made oil export agreements with Iran, including Russia, France, and Spain.
Bloomberg mentioned that according to an Iranian oil ministry official, there was a tanker being loaded at Kharg Port, which was identified as France's Total SA. Besides that, chartered vessels for Chinese and Spanish companies were expected to arrive later Sunday. While a Russian company was also said to hire a tanker, but it has not get there yet.
After sanctions were elevated in January, Iran is attempting to re-establish its oil production by increasing oil export up to 1 million barrels per day this year. Iran and Total and Hellenic Petroleum SA of Greece have signed agreements on supply. During January, the country produced 2.86 million barrels each day.
There are three preliminary shipments to Europe, based on Iran's plan, conveying 4 million barrels of oil with 2 million barrels are given to Total and the rest to Spain and Russia companies. Pirouz Mousavi, managing director of Iran Oil Terminals Co., said, "The loading operation of the three tankers at Kharg terminals will be done within 48 hours."
Meanwhile, RT also confirms that Iran has marked an arrangement with French oil giant Total to ship 160,000 to 180,000 barrels of a day, as indicated by the IRNA. Despite this new start in the Europe market, Iran has been stable in growing its oil exports to Japan.
Japan seems to be quite promising. Since December 2015, the oil export to Japan has grown for at least 34 percent, beating Saudi Arabia with only 5 percent increase. Iran is expecting to grab 10 percent of Japan's market with 350,000 barrels per day.
The sanctions were removed in January after a confirmation by the UN nuclear watchdog. It said that Tehran had fulfilled all requirements in the deal that has been designed to prevent the country's nuclear weapon development. The first crude oil shipment to Europe becomes a new start for Iran to rebuild its oil industry. More oil outputs are expected to be exported in the near future.
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