Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.16 / Trend F.Mehdi/
The Iranian private sector has exported two one-million-barrel consignments of crude oil in the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20, 2012, IRNA quoted National Iranian Oil Company Managing Director Ahmad Qalebani as saying.
The NIOC received 320 requests from the domestic and foreign private companies for buying Iranian crude oil, he said. The private sector is facing problems, such as providing tankers, insuring shipments, and securing financial transactions, he added.
In October 2012, the Mehr News Agency quoted the chairman of the union of Iranian exporters of oil derivatives, Hassan Khosrojerdi, as saying that the Iranian private sector has exported over 20 million barrels of crude oil to international markets during the past four months, circumventing the West's sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic's oil sector.
On September 9, 2012, the private sector delivered the first shipment of crude oil to foreign buyers.
"An agreement has been made that allows an Iranian consortium comprising private firms to export 20 percent of its oil exports to international markets, including the EU," Khosrojerdi said.
"This equates to around 400,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil per day," he added.
Economic experts believed that Iran's private sector would fill the gap created by international sanctions on Iran's oil sector and central bank.
On September 2, 2012, Mohammad-Ali Khatibi, who is Iran's OPEC governor and the director of the National Iranian Oil Company, said Iran's oil exports are at their normal level and are unaffected by Western embargoes.
"We don't see anything abnormal, almost everything is progressing routinely," he told the ISNA News Agency.
In July 2012, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said that although the West has imposed sanctions on Iran's oil sector with the goal of toppling the Islamic establishment, the country's oil exports will never be halted because oil consuming countries need Iranian crude.
"There are many ways to easily sell oil, one of which is to take advantage of businessmen and the private sector," Qasemi said.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
U.S. sanctions entered into force on June 28, while EU bans on Iranian oil imports came into force on July 1.