TEHRAN - National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has increased its crude oil selling prices (OSP) for Asian buyers in August amid a global surge in oil prices, Reuters reported citing industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

As reported, NIOC’s official selling price increase affected four grades of Iranian oil namely Light, Heavy, Soroush and Forouzan.

The NIOC had set the August OSP of Iranian Light grade for Asia at $8.9 a barrel above the Oman/Dubai average, up $2.80 from the previous month.

The prices for Iranian Heavy, Forouzan, and Soroush grades are also set to be $5.6, $5.65, and $1.45 above the Oman/Dubai average, respectively.

Iran has been shipping its oil into the global markets successfully despite the U.S. sanctions and over the past year, the export of Iranian crude oil increased significantly.

In late June, Head of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) Massoud Mir-Kazemi announced that selling oil was better than before.

“The price of oil and its export has increased and selling oil has become better,” Mir-Kazemi told reporters on the sidelines of the cabinet meeting on June 22.

Considering the increase in exports, NIOC has also been ramping up production so that according to Oil Minister Javad Oji, the country’s oil production has increased almost to the pre-sanctions level.

In April, Oji said that the country’s crude oil production reached the pre-sanction level.

Saying that the current capacity of Iran’s oil production is 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