Iran will resume oil swap with a Caspian Sea littoral state when sanctions targeting the country's nuclear program are lifted, marking an end to a five-year halt to Iran's oil swap in the region.
A crude oil cargo from an unnamed Caspian state, likely to be Kazakhstan, will be offloaded at a northern terminal for swapping, according to Mehr News Agency, citing the National Iranian Oil Company.
Seyyed Pirouz Mousavi, the head of Iranian Oil Terminals Company, said on Saturday the country's terminals in the Caspian Sea are ready to swap petroleum products.
In a statement earlier this week, the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company said Iran has resumed swap operations for Turkmen and Kazakh liquefied petroleum gas.
Iranian oil officials discussed swap deals for oil, gas and petroleum products in November with a delegation of Russia's Rosneft in Tehran, in a closed-door meeting in which the two sides agreed to set up a joint committee to fast-tracking the swap agreements.
Deputy Oil Minister Hamidreza Araqi said last month Iran is ready to start swapping 300 million cubic meters of natural gas per day from Russia in the north to southern terminals in the Persian Gulf.
Oil officials are also in talks with senior representatives from Azerbaijan about gas swap deals.
