TEHRAN - Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji has said the country’s oil production has reached three million barrels per day (bpd), Shana reported.

Speaking to the press on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, Oji said Iran’s capacity for producing light crude oil has increased by 200,000 bpd, allowing the country to boost its total output to around three million bpd.

He also noted the Oil Ministry is pursuing projects to improve the quality of fuel produced in the country’s refineries.

Oji said one such project had come online in Isfahan Refinery in central Iran with some 15 million liters per day in Euro 5 diesel fuel production capacity.

He added two other fuel production units with Euro 5 standard will soon be launched in refineries in Abadan in southwest and in Tabriz in northwest Iran. 

Iran has been ramping up its oil production and exports over the past year as the country has been implementing new strategies to overcome U.S. sanctions.

According to OPEC’s latest monthly report published last week, Iran’s average oil production in the third quarter of 2022 stood at 2.566 million bpd, 11,000 bpd more than the figure for the second quarter of the year.

Citing secondary sources, the report put the country’s average oil output in the second quarter of the year at 2.555 million bpd.

Recent data released by the United States Department of Energy also indicates that the Islamic Republic exported 1.5 bpd of crude oil in the first seven months of the current year.

According to Tasnim news agency, Iran’s oil revenues increased by eight times in the first five months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-August 22) with respect to the same period of the previous year. The country’s oil revenues also increased by 11 times in the previous year.

In late November, Oji said the country has reached the highest record of oil, gas condensate, and petrochemical exports since 2017 (when the U.S. started re-imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil industry) in the eighth Iranian calendar month of Aban (October 23-November 21).

“Iran's oil industry is now at the forefront of the economic war and the toughest sanctions have been imposed on this industry,” he said, noting that the industry has thrived despite the mentioned pressures.

EF/MA