Azerbaijan, Baku, Mar.16/ Trend G.Mehdi/
National Iranian Tanker Company has appointed Ali-Akbar Safaei as the managing director of the US- and EU-sanctioned company, the Mehr News Agency reported.
Safaei replaced Hamid Behbahani in this position. He has previously served as the NITC board member.
Recently, NITC's supertanker fleet has been boosted to 30 vessels with a maximum carrying capacity of 60 million barrels. It has an additional 14 small crude oil tankers.
In July 2012, Iran called back seven of its 10 tankers working in European Union, Mehr News Agency reported, saying this step is Iran's way of applying sanctions against the Union.
Iran National Oil Company's official told Mehr anonymously that Iran's 10 super tankers have been sailing in EU, but recently seven of them have been called back to Iran from Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf.
"There is a need for more tankers to ship Iranian oil to international markets, but because of sanctions, they have to avoid some countries to ship Iranian crude oil," he said.
The EU put into effect a ban on the importation, purchase, or shipping of Iranian oil on July 1, 2012.
In January, the latest European Union sanctions against Iran allowed ships to burn fuel made from Iranian oil if it's produced and loaded in another country, according to the insurers of 90 percent of the world's fleet, Bloomberg reported.
EU has cut its Iranian oil purchase alongside stopping insurance, reinsurance, Protection & Indemnity (P&I) and technical certification to ships that carry Iranian oil since July 1.