TEHRAN - Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh announced on Wednesday that the heads of the three branches accorded to sales of three million barrels of crude oil at Iran Energy Exchange (IRENEX) via a 100-percent-rial mechanism, IRNA reported.

The sales, which may occur the next week, will be done based on the forex rate announced by the Central Bank of Iran’s online Sana system (accessible at sanarate.ir, a website that records daily forex trade from across the domestic exchange bureaus), the minister added.
“In case applicants for oil prefer to do their purchases via other currencies, that is also possible,” Zanganeh said.
He also informed that those exporters who had purchased oil at IRENEX in the past two rounds of offering oil at this market have been able to export the cargos without any specific difficulty.
On October 28, just few days before new U.S. sanctions on Iran’s petroleum sector took effect (November 4), National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) could sell some 280,000 barrels of crude oil at $74.85 per barrel on the first day of offering crude oil for export at the international ring of IRENEX. With the daily supply amount of one million barrels per day, the market wrapped up by selling eight 35,000-barel-cargos of oil on the day.
And on November 11, NIOC sold 700,000 barrels of light crude oil at IRENEX at the price of $64.97 per barrel. The set price for this round of oil sales was $71.59 per barrel.
Establishment of IRENEX, which is considered as a turning point in Iran's strategic oil industry and capital market and also a platform for producers and consumers to be in touch and pay lower trade costs in a transparent business environment, can be translated into creation of a new energy stock market that results in economic development.  
The energy market is basically exports-oriented and has the capacity to increase Iranian oil customers both domestically and internationally. Price setting relies on the base price determined by NIOC according to global prices. Receiving a trading code, foreign companies can purchase oil cargos from IRENEX.
HJ/MA