Oil Ministry Finding New Ways to Cope With US Sanctions

Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh says Iran has turned to the sale of Islamic bonds to finance oil projects.
"The first sale of bonds to fund our oil output augmentation projects worth $6.2 billion started on Monday," Zanganeh said, Platts reported.
The minister noted that the new US sanctions were inflicting huge pressure on Iran but the country was "walking around the sanctions", though he did not say how.
Iran has also been persisting with oil sales on the Tehran bourse to skirt sanctions but interest has been lukewarm. The country has increasingly also directed volumes into enhanced oil recovery projects.
Zanganeh said a new oil terminal at Jask will be operational by 2021.
Iran crude production has plummeted in the past few months, falling to 2.8 million bpd in December, the lowest since January 2014, according to the most recent Platts OPEC Survey.
But despite declining production, the country holds recoverable oil and gas reserves of 160 billion barrels and 33.3 trillion cu m, respectively.
Iran's crude oil and condensate exports have more than halved since US withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May of last year.
Exports averaged 1.2 million bpd in January, according to provisional data from Platts cFlow, trade flow service, compared with 2.70 million b/d last April.
The US granted eight key Iran oil buyers an exemption 180 days from the sanctions, as they came into force in early November, enabling China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey to buy some Iranian crude.