Trend Agency's Iran Service Department Chief Dalga Khatinoglu
The Iranian deputy oil minister has rejected a central bank's report, which said that the country's daily oil output has decreased by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), claiming that the output has declined just by 28,000 bpd.
The Mehr news agency quoted Ahmad Qalebani as saying that Iran's oil output stands at around 4.2 million bpd.
This is happening at the time when the central bank has recently released a report on the country's oil production during March 2008-March 2011. The report indicates that the output has been reduced to 3.536 million bpd from 4.057 million bpd.
The report has highlighted that the statistics was based on the oil ministry's data.
The central bank's report shows 521,000 barrels decline in output and refers to the fall in exports. The data also shows that Iran's oil export has plunged to 2 million bpd in the year to March 2011 from 2.522 million bpd in the year to March 2008.
Statistics related to the year to March 2011 indicates that the volume of oil exports has dropped to 1.995 million bpd during the third quarter of the year.
Annual reports of OPEC almost confirm the central bank's data. According to OPEC reports, Iran's oil output fell since 2008, dropping to 3.706 million bpd in 2010 from 4.055 million bpd.
The downward trend in output continued in 2011. Based on OPEC data related to March 2012, the output stood at 3.424 million bpd.
Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi announced on April 11 that the value of Iran's oil exports amounted to $60 billion in the year to March 2012, according to Mehr.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that Iran's oil revenues hit $74 billion in 2010.
Qalebani has claimed that some 2.3 million barrels of oil has been exported per day in the past calendar year. Considering the average oil price above $100 per barrel, Iran would have gained over $80 billion last year, which contradicts the oil ministry's statistics.