TEHRAN- Iranian heavy oil price increased $4.35 in April, according to OPEC’s latest monthly report published on Tuesday.

The country’s average heavy oil price was $68.52 in April, up 6.8 percent from $64.17 in March 2019.

According to the report, Iran produced 2.554 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in the mentioned month, a 164,000 bpd decrease from 2.718 million bpd in the previous month.

The report put average Iranian crude output for the Q1 2019 at 2.725 million barrels per day indicating a near 257,000-bpd fall compared to the figure for Q4 2018.

The country’s average heavy crude price was also reported to be $62.53 since beginning of 2019 up to the report’s publishing day.

Iranian oil industry has been under pressure from the U.S. efforts to isolate the country by reimposing sanctions. The new round of sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector were put in action on November 4, 2018.

Soon after the sanctions took effect, the U.S. government agreed to let eight countries, including close allies South Korea and Japan, as well as India, keep buying Iranian oil.

However on April 22 2019, the U.S. announced that Washington has decided not to extend waivers allowing major importers to continue buying oil from Iran. The waivers ended on May 2.

Asia's crude oil imports from Iran rose to the highest in eight months in March as buyers rushed for more cargoes to take advantage of the last days of the waivers to the sanctions the United States imposed.

EF/MA