TEHRAN – The managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has said Iran is looking into potential new destinations for the country’s oil cargoes to diversify the list of oil buyers, IRNA reported.

Mentioning a 40-percent increase in the country’s oil exports over the past few months, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr told IRNA that: “This increase in exports has been both due to having new destinations and new customers and also the hard work carried out for reviving part of the traditional markets.”

noted that the Oil Ministry is also going to modify the process of offering crude oil at the country’s energy exchange known as the IRENEX.

He noted that new negotiations have also been underway for attracting investment for the country’s oil industry projects which have mostly been focused on domestic investors, and solutions such as the issuance of commodity deposit certificates for selling oil on the energy exchange are also on the agenda.

Khojasteh-Mehr said NIOC plans to use all the resources available in the country in order to neutralize the U.S. sanctions and this is what the policies related to the resistance economy are.

Asked about NIOC’s long-term plans for increasing the country’s oil production to 5.7 million barrels per day (bpd), the official said: “The estimate for achieving a production capacity of 5.7 million barrels of oil per day is realistic and based on the production potential of Iran's oil reservoirs and has a scientific basis.”

Of course, to achieve this production level, $90 billion of investment is needed. We plan to use the maximum domestic financing capacity in the first place, while foreign companies can also invest in the implementation of the country’s development projects, and we do not rule out the presence of foreign companies.

Back in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has been boosting oil exports in the current year as major oil buyers like China are cutting back imports from Russia due to the war with Ukraine.

Based on the report, Iranian oil exports increased by 30 percent in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the previous year, to reach 870,000 bpd.

The jump in Iran’s oil exports in Q1 was the fastest among all producers in West Asia, while the volume of exports is estimated to be the highest since former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the so-called Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, the report said.

EF/MG