Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 24
By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend:
The deputy of Iran's oil minister says the country has lost its share in the global oil market due to western sanctions and resuming the crude oil export is "so difficult".
Iran's oil exports had declined from 2 million 2011 to 1.07 million barrels per day in 2013 due to imposed sanctions by the U.S. and EU in mid.2012.
The EU, which shared about 18 percent of Iran's total oil exports (including gas condensate), cut crude oil import from Iran and the Asian customers had had to decrease Iranian oil import every 6 months due to the U.S. sanctions on the Middle Eastern country.
Iran's oil export increased a little to about 1.25 million barrels per day during last 9 months.
Mansour Moazzami, deputy minister for planning and supervision on hydrocarbon resources told ISNA on Nov.24 that beside sanctions, Iran's "most dangerous enemy" is Iraq's speedy upstream oil projects development, cramping Iran's position in global oil markets.
According to the OPEC monthly statistics, Iraq's oil production has increased from 2.62 million barrels in October 2011 to 3.23 million barrels per day in the same month of 2014. During this period Iran's oil output decreased by 836,000 barrels per day to 2.742 million barrels per day.
Moazzemi said that the U.S. had given waivers for Iran's Asian customers every six months and the goal was giving time for customers to set their refineries based on non-Iran type oils technically, then resuming oil exports to these refineries is quite difficult.
Every refinery is set on a kind of crude oil with specific API gravity and sulfur contents. API is a measure of how heavy or light petroleum liquid is compared to water.
The deputy of oil minister added that OPEC's another member Venezuela is Iran's rival in resuming oil markets as well. "The problem is resuming the lost markets, the more difficult issue is the maintaining the market and finally the increase in Iran's share in global oil market is the hardest issue," he said.
According to OPEC's latest monthly report, the 12 members of the cartel decreased oil output by 226,400 barrels to 30.253 million barrels per day, while the ceiling level of oil output should have been at 30 million barrels per day due to the agreement among the members.
On the other hand, OPEC says that the demand for OPEC crude is estimated at 29.5 mbpd in 2014. In 2015, the figure is estimated to reach 29.2 mbpd.
The OPEC website also put the cartel's oil basket price at $74.03 per a barrel on Nov.20. OPEC is scheduled to hold a meeting among members on Nov.27.
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