TEHRAN - Iran produced 2.485 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in July, registering a 28 percent increase compared to the same month in 2020, according to OPEC’s latest monthly report published on August 12.

Based on secondary sources, Iran had produced 1.936 million bpd of crude oil in July 2020.

The Islamic Republic’s average crude output for the second quarter of 2021 stood at 2.443 million bpd indicating a 224,000-bpd increase compared to the figure for the first quarter of the year, the report said.

The report put the average Iranian crude output for 2019 at 2.356 million bpd, while the average output in 2020 fell to 1.988 million bpd.

These statistics show that although with the re-imposition of the U.S. sanctions, Iran's oil production decreased; gradually the country has been able to compensate for part of the output decline.

The country’s heavy crude oil price also increased $1.3 in July, to register a 1.8 percent rise compared to the previous month, according to the OPEC report.

Iran sold its heavy crude oil at $72.98 per barrel in the mentioned month, compared to June’s $71.68 per barrel.

The country’s average heavy crude price was $65.01 since the beginning of 2021 up to the report’s publishing date, in comparison to $38.54 in the previous year’s same period.

In addition to the devastating impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on the global oil industry which resulted in the drastic fall in oil prices, the Iranian oil industry has also been under pressure from the U.S. efforts to isolate the country by re-imposing sanctions.

According to IRNA, studies show that the share of oil in Iran’s economic growth increased in the previous Iranian calendar year 1399 (ended on March 20); the figure was reported to be - 7.4 percent in the Iranian calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19, 2020), in the winter of 1999, it reached + 4.5 percent.

Iran has been ramping up its oil production over the past few months following the recovery of the global markets from the negative impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

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

In one of its latest reports dubbed “Iran Oil and Gas Report”, Fitch also saw the Islamic Republic’s crude oil exports double in 2022 compared to 2020.

“The prospects for the Iranian oil sector have brightened significantly following Joe Biden's victory in the U.S. presidential election on November 3, 2020. President Biden has indicated that he will seek to re-enter the U.S. into the Iranian nuclear deal, paving the way for a roll-back of secondary sanctions and recovery of around 2.0 million bpd in oil production,” the report said.

EF/MA