Azernews.Az

By Trend

Iran's oil minister has denied the reports on Iran-Russia oil swap deal, saying that Iran never had an oil swap with Russia.

"Iran's oil industry and oil revenues are the main targets of US sanctions. I don't have to spill out the information on how Iran circumvents these sanctions, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said at a press conference on Thursday, Trend reports.

Referring to the amount of oil exported from Iran during the sanctions, he refused to say anything, claiming the information was sensitive.

“I experienced the Iran-Iraq war. But this war (the sanctions) is harder. But we are resisting. We use all the possible means to pass this phase. Several people are sitting in OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to combat Iran, we must resist,” he said.

Sanctions

Referring to the exemption of 8 countries including Italy, Greece and Turkey from US sanctions regarding Iranian oil imports, Zanganeh announced that except Turkey, Europeans have not bought any oil.

"Greece and Italy are exempted from the sanctions but do not buy any oil. I do not know why," he said. “No one will sacrifice itself for Iran.”

“Some expect us to export all oil products to neighbors, while the capacity of export is limited. In this regard, we have increased the consumption of domestic refineries," he said, answering a question related to criticism about the inability of the oil ministry to export oil products to neighbors.

He went on to say that the Europeans, except for Turkey, haven't yet bought any oil from Iran.

He reminded that Iran's oil production has increased by 1 million barrels a day in the course of four months and Iran's oil exports in May 2012 reached 2.78 million barrels.

Business with Iraq

The official then spoke about Iran's dealings with Iraq. He said that Iran was swapping 11,000 barrels of oil with Kirkuk.

"After sanctions were imposed on Iran, Iraq has cut the swap. This is while Iraq has $2 billion worth of debts to Iran for gas and electricity,” said Zanganeh.

A crude oil swap deal between Iran and Iraq, which was supposed to begin in mid-April 2018, has started in June. Under the deal, Iraq is supposed to send oil from the Kirkuk fields to Iran by truck, to be refined in Iran, and Iran had to send the same amount of crude it receives to Iraq’s southern ports for export.

Zanganeh further said that plans for development of the Ab Teymour and Mansouri oil fields in western Iran have been delayed.

He said both fields were at the stage of signing the contract and reached the final results with the Indonesia's state oil company PT Pertamina, but the company announced that they could not cooperate because of the sanctions.

Achievements in gas, petrochemical industries

Speaking of Iran's achievements in the gas industry, he said the gas storage capacity that was recovered till 1979 was 9 trillion cubic feet, which has reached 33 trillion cubic feet today. He stated that the gas injection rate from 2.7 million cubic meters in 1979 (Islamic Revolution) reached more than 77 million cubic meters today.

Referring to the achievements of the country in the petrochemical industry, he said that in 1979, the total net sales of the country stood at one million tons, and this year this figure has reached more than 30 million tons worth about $17 billion.

Domestic gasoline prices

Zangeneh also spoke about the possibility of fuel prices in Iran being increased, saying that if people don't accept it, the government shouldn't increase them.

The minister went on to say that Iran has certain exemptions for exporting crude oil, but doesn't have it in case with oil products.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz