Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 17
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Delegations from Russia and Kazakhstan are scheduled to visit Iran the next week to study resuming crude oil swap, Pirouz Mousavi, managing director of the Iranian Oil Terminals Company (IOTC), said.
The delegation will visit the facilities of Neka oil terminal in Iran’s northern Mazandaran province, Mousavi said, Fars news agency reported Aug. 17.
He further said the crude oil swap with Caspian states will resume within one month.
At the first step, some 50-100,000 barrels of crude oil is planned to be swapped per day, Mousavi said, adding the volume will increase gradually to reach the determined level.
Early the day, director of Iran's North Oil Terminal, Hamid Reza Shahdoust said Tehran plans to increase the swap capacity with Caspian states from the current level of 120,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.5 million bpd.
The Hague International Court of Justice fined NICO of Iran $5.5 million due to stopping the swap of oil with its international partners. Under oil swap agreements, which started in 1997 and were in place for over 12 years, Iran received crude oil of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in the Neka port and delivered an equal volume to the clients of the same countries in Persian Gulf.
The total income received by Iran from these swap transactions from 1997 to 2009 amounted to about $880 million.