TEHRAN – Iran’s First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri has said the country is able to increase its oil exports up to 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) once the U.S. sanctions are lifted.

"Oil sales have dropped a lot, but now the situation is better, and we are in control. We will be able to increase oil exports to 2.5 million barrels per day after the removal of the sanctions," Jahangiri said on Friday.

Iran has been ramping up its oil production over the past few months as talks for reviving the 2015 nuclear deal progress. Tehran has been negotiating its conditions for reviving the nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with the world powers since early April.

Oil exports have also been increasing since late 2020 despite the U.S. sanctions and the Iranian Oil Ministry has announced its readiness for boosting the country’s crude oil output to the pre-sanction levels in case of the U.S. rejoining the nuclear deal.

Earlier in April, Reuters reported that the Islamic Republic’s crude oil exports in April remained above the level of exports during the same period in 2020.

The latest report by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) put Iranian crude output for March at 2.304 million barrels per day indicating a 137,000-bpd increase compared to the figure for the previous month.

Based on OPEC data, the country’s average crude output in the first quarter of 2021 stood at 2.190 million barrels per day indicating a near 197,000-bpd rise compared to the figure for the last quarter of 2020.

Fitch Solutions Incorporation, a subsidiary of Fitch Ratings, which is one of the U.S.’s three biggest credit rating agencies, has also forecasted a 6.8-percent growth for Iranian oil exports in 2021 if the U.S comes back to the 2015 nuclear deal.

EF/MA