Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 2
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Iran has sold two million barrels of crude oil to private Chinese refineries, Mohsen Ghamsari, director of International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said, SHANA news agency reported Aug. 2.
The refineries have recently gained permission from Chinese government to import crude oil from abroad which makes a significant volume, Ghamsari said, adding however these refineries lack logistic and financial resources which makes it difficult working with them.
Tehran has already sold two million barrels of crude to the refineries directly, but now seeks to deal with them via third parities, Ghamsari said, adding talks are underway with Trafigura company on the issue.
Trafigura Beheer BV is a Dutch multinational commodity trading company that trades in base metals and energy, including oil. It is the world's third largest private oil and metals trader after Vitol and Glencore.
The company has a contract with Tehran for sending Iranian crude cargoes to certain destinations in the world, Ghamsari said, adding for the first step it is planned that Trafigura to deliver a 2-million barrel crude oil consignment to Chinese private refineries.
If the test deal is successful Iran will continue working with Trafigura on the issue, he said.
The latest market figures show that Iran’s exports of crude oil have already reached the highest levels in more than four years.
The four key Asian clients of Iran’s oil - South Korea, Japan, China and India - imported 1.72 million barrels per day (bpd) in June.
Reuters has quoted analysts as saying that the rise in Iran’s oil exports shows that the country is regaining the market share it lost as a result of the sanctions at a much faster pace than expected.
Iran’s overall oil sales have almost doubled since December before the sanctions were lifted on the country’s oil exports a month later.