TEHRAN - Iran produced 2.574 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in June, registering a 21,000-bpd increase compared to the figure for the previous month, according to OPEC’s latest monthly report published on Tuesday.

Iran produced 2.543 million bpd of crude oil in May based on secondary sources, the report read.

As per OPEC data, the Islamic Republic’s average crude output for the second quarter of 2022 stood at 2.560 million bpd indicating a 32,000-bpd increase compared to the figure for the first quarter of the year.

The report put the average Iranian crude output for 2021 at 2.392 million bpd, while the average output in 2020 was reported to be 1.991 million bpd.

The country’s heavy crude oil price also increased by $0.37 in June, to register a 0.3 percent rise compared to the previous month, according to the OPEC report.

Iran sold its heavy crude oil at $115.85 per barrel in the mentioned month, compared to May’s $115.48 per barrel.

The country’s average heavy crude price was $105.14 from the beginning of 2022 up to the report’s publishing date, in comparison to $64.31 in the previous year’s same period.

OPEC statistics show that despite the U.S. sanctions, Iran's oil production has been increasing gradually and the country has been able to compensate for the output decline.

Earlier this month, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Director for Supervising Oil and Gas Production Hormoz Qalavand said that the company is now ready to return to the maximum level of oil production.

“This would be rapidly done if the country needs to increase export, or domestic refineries need more feed”, Qalavand stressed.

Back in April, Oil Minister Javad Oji had said that the country’s crude oil production has reached the pre-sanction level.

Saying that the current capacity of Iran’s oil production has reached more than 3.8 million bpd, the minister said, “We hope that through the efforts of all those active in this sector, we will reach higher figures in the exports of crude oil, gas condensate, oil products, and petrochemicals."

“By taking effective measures in onshore and offshore oil fields, drilling new wells, repairing wells, rebuilding and modernizing facilities, and oil collection centers, the current oil production capacity has reached before the sanctions, and we have no problem in performance and this amount of production”, Oji added.

EF/MA