The latest statistics released by Iran Custom Administration indicates a drop in the country's natural gas condensate export volume.
The gas condensate shares about 30 percent of Iran's total oil exports; it plunged after the imposition of tough western sanctions on Iran in mid-2012 and then soared suddenly after an interim nuclear deal was achieved in November 24, 2013.
Before imposition of western sanctions on Iran, the country was exporting about 270,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gas condensate. This figure plunged to around 170,000 bpd in mid- 2013, but suddenly rose after Iran and P5+1 reached an interim nuclear accord.
Iran had stored a huge amount of unsold condensate during 2H12 to 3Q13 and exported that after Nov.2013.
There are no accurate statistics about the real sold condensate, because the Custom Administration data covers the loaded and exported amount of gas condensate, rather than sold volume.
For instance, the director of the International Affairs Department at National Iranian Oil Company Mohsen Ghamsari said Aug. 5 that Iran has less than 5 million barrels of gas condensate storage at China's coasts to be sold to Chinese refiners gradually. There is no data whether this amount has been sold or not.
The latest custom's monthly report indicates that Iran exported only 262,000 bpd of gas condensate during Iran's fiscal year's 9th month -approximately corresponds to December 2014- while the figure for the previous month was above 530,000 bpd.
When comparing the figures, we find that the average gas condensate exports between November 23, 2013 and June 21, 2014 is about 504,000 bpd, while the figure for a period from June 22, 2014 to Dec.22 2014 is about 351,000 bpd.
Iran's Custom Administration only releases the statistics of gas condensate export, but the Oil Ministry's official Facebook page released a report Jan.5, indicating that the country's current oil export, including the gas condensate is about 1.4 million to 1.5 million barrels per day.
Then, it seems Iran has exported about 1.1 million barrels of crude oil and 400,000 barrels of gas condensate during 2014.
The following figures are extracted from Iranian Custom Administration's monthly report:
|
Condensate export |
Volume Kilo metric tons |
Value |
Thousand barrels per day |
Price of a barrel |
|
Oct 23 to Nov 22 |
1,149 |
$1.018B |
311.34 |
$105.47 |
|
Nov 23 to Dec 22 |
1,690 |
$1.419B |
457.94 |
$99.96 |
|
Dec 23 to Jan 21 |
3,599 |
$2.157B |
975.21 |
$71.35 |
|
Jan 22 to Feb 20 |
1,095 |
$959M |
296.71 |
$104.26 |
|
Feb 21 to Mar 20 |
897 |
$816M |
243.06 |
$108.30 |
|
Mar 21 to Apr 20 |
846 |
$779M |
229.24 |
$109.62 |
|
Apr 21 to May21 |
4,095 |
$2.251B |
1109.61 |
$65.44 |
|
May 22 to June 21 |
807 |
$761M |
218.67 |
$112.26 |
|
June 22 to July 22 |
1,965 |
$1.388B |
532.45 |
$84.09 |
|
July 23 to Aug 22 |
759 |
$678M |
205.66 |
$106.34 |
|
Aug 23 to Sep 22 |
726 |
$657M |
196.72 |
$107.73 |
|
Sep 23 to Oct 23 |
1,616 |
$1.027B |
452.48 |
$75.66 |
|
Oct.23 to Nov.22 |
1,639 |
1.188B |
458.92 |
$86.29 |
|
Nov.23 to Dec.22 |
936 |
847 M |
262.08 |
$107.73 |
Edited by CN
Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector, head of Trend Agency's Iran news service
Follow him on @dalgakhatinoglu