TEHRAN – National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has raised its official crude oil selling prices (OSP) for Asian buyers in March, Reuters reported on Wednesday, quoting an industry source.

As reported, the National Iranian Oil Company has set the price of its light crude oil for sale in March at two dollars a barrel above the Oman / Dubai average prices.

Based on the Reuters data, the OSP for Iranian light crude in March is set 20 cents above the prices for the previous month.

According to OPEC’s latest monthly report published on February 14, Iranian heavy oil price also increased by $2.45 in January to register a 3.1-percent increase compared to December 2022.

The Iranian heavy crude oil price reached $81.56 per barrel in the first month of 2022, compared to December’s $79.11 per barrel.

According to the report, the country’s average heavy crude price was $85.59 in 2022.

The average price of Iranian oil in the first month of 2023 registered a decrease of $4.03 compared to the same month in 2022. The price of Iranian heavy crude in the first month of 2022 was $85.59 per barrel, on average.

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.

Earlier this month, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji said the country’s income from the sales of oil, natural gas, gas condensate, and petroleum products in the first 10 months of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2022-January 20, 2023) increased by 40 percent compared to the same period last year.

Addressing an open session of the parliament on February 1, Oji said that 70 million barrels of gas condensate were exported in the mentioned time span.

According to the official, the goals set in the current year’s national budget bill for the exports of oil and gas will definitely be achieved by the yearend.

He noted that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has already sold enough oil and gas and petroleum products to realize the budget goals by 100 percent, however, collecting the revenues needs more time.

In remarks in November 2022, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi highlighted the failure of the enemy’s policy of maximum pressure, saying the country’s oil export has reached the pre-sanction levels.

Back in January, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a report put Iran’s average oil production in 2022 at 2.54 million bpd, 140,000 bpd more than the previous year.

Iran's oil production in 2021 was about 2.4 million bpd.

EF/MA