The National Iranian Oil Company has received over 80% of its crude export revenues in the fiscal 2021-22 and the rest has been bartered for medicine and essential goods, the oil minister said.
“In addition to collecting export revenues from its regular customers, NIOC has concluded several contracts with new buyers in Latin American countries,” ILNA also quoted Javad Owji as saying.
Petrochemical firms presented close to $12.5 billion of their export earnings to the secondary foreign exchange platform [known locally as Nima] in 2021, he added.
Owji noted that petrochemical companies are top earners of foreign currency revenue at a time when Iran’s economy is under US sanctions and struggling with forex shortages.
“Currency generated by petrochemical exports in 2021 was 76% higher than in the corresponding period of last year,” he said.
“NIOC also collected at least $4 billion of debts from gas buyers in 2021 that was four times more than the figure in 2020.”
Iran’s daily oil export has exceeded 900,000 barrels over the last three months.
The Iranian Parliament raised its forecast for oil sales and price in 2022 that starts in March amid the inclusion of barter deals for its crude. It forecast sales of 1.4 million bpd based on a $70/b price, up from the previous estimate of 1.2 million bpd based on $60/b.
The lawmakers' decision came after the Oil Ministry gave assurances that it can export more than the 1.2 million bpd proposed in the government's bill.
Refining Capacity
According to the minister, raising the quality and output of oil refineries and building new refineries are on the Oil Ministry’s agenda to help increase Iran's oil refining capacity by 1.5 times in five years.
“Development programs are underway to boost the country’s refining capacity, including crude oil and gas condensate, to 3.5 million barrels per day from the current 2.2 mbpd,” he said.
"Investors have been identified for generating and developing refining capacity, and they have signed agreements with the Oil Ministry in this regard.”
Commenting on gas production and consumption during winter, Owji said, “Since the volume of gas production has not changed, we expect a deficit of 200 million cubic meters of gas per day in winter.”
Consumption in household and commercial sectors accounts for 70% of the total output and close to 260 mcm/d of gas are delivered to power stations and petrochemical plants.
Gas output capacity currently stands at 1 billion cubic meters per day, which is similar to that of last Iranian year (March 2020-21), but it is expected to increase by 10% by the end of the current fiscal year (March 2022) and reach 1.1 bcm.
In order to prevent problems in different sectors, plans have been devised to compensate gas shortage by supplying liquid fuel, he added.
Regarding gas diplomacy, Owji said, "One of the issues we are pursuing is the issue of gas diplomacy with neighboring countries, including Turkmenistan. We will do our best to increase the current 2% share of Iran's gas trade. We will also hold talks with Turkmenistan, Iraq and other neighboring countries to increase gas exports and trade.”
Iran generally exports close to 75 million cubic meters of natural gas per day to neighboring states, namely Iraq and Turkey, although exports have declined this summer due to the rise in domestic consumption.
Armenia and Azerbaijan also buy gas via swap deals.
