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Iran ready to resume oil swap operations if it is profitable

Oil&Gas Materials 24 May 2015 18:09 (UTC +04:00)

Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24

By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran is ready to resume oil swap operations if it is profitable, Director of the International Affairs Department at National Iranian Oil Company Mohsen Ghamsari, said.

Once the oil sanctions against the country are lifted, oil swap operations will be resumed considering the existing infrastructures, Iran's Fars news agency reported on May 24.

Swap of oil between Iran and Caspian Sea states stopped due to swap fees in 2010. Iran persisted on five-folding the swap fees to $5/barrel, but this demand was not accepted.

"Iran currently has a daily 260,000-barrel crude oil swap capacity, while the ships with 12,000 tons capacity can dock in Neka," the head of the Iranian Oil Terminals Company (IOTC), Pirouz Mousavi said on April 22.

Swap operations earned Iran $880 million between 1999 and 2009, Mahmoud Astaneh, the consultant to the Iranian oil minister said on April 25.

It is a demanding job for the country to restore its status in oil swap operations, he noted.

Many facilities, including the Neka terminal and the Neka-Rey pipeline) were established to boost the volume of oil swap, he said, adding that the facilities have remained unused since the swap operations were halted and maintaining the facilities cost a lot.

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