Iran is ready to start shipping gas condensates via its large tanker fleet once sanctions are lifted, the National Iranian Oil Company’s director for international affairs said on Tuesday.
“Iran holds a considerable amount of condensate at sea, which will go on sale immediately after the sanctions removal. Negotiations are underway and several deals are about to be finalized,” Seyyed Mohsen Qamsari also told Mehr News Agency.
Qamsari noted that the Persian Gulf country will have no trouble selling condensates in the post-sanctions period.
“Iran has used its own vessels over the years of sanctions to maintain condensate exports. We would have faced a lot of problem [for condensate exports] if it weren’t for the National Iranian Tanker Company’s large fleet,” he said. According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran has the world’s largest fleet of supertankers. Having 42 VLCCs, or very large crude carriers, “no other company in the world owns that number of VLCCs”.
The news of Iran’s large condensate stockpile comes as CNN claimed last year that Iranian vessels hold 30-40 million barrels of oil at sea, while the New-York-based information portal Platts estimated the number to be around 53 million barrels.
Iranian officials have denied stockpiling huge amounts of oil at sea.
Qamsari noted that domestic companies have shied away from providing insurance to NITC vessels after the July 14 nuclear agreement, but he expected the problem to be swiftly addressed once sanctions are removed.
Iran and six world powers (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) clinched a historic deal in July that limits the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear program in exchange for some sanctions relief. The deal is expected to take effect in mid-January.
NITC announced in October that it was in negotiations with two British firms and a Swedish company that offer protection and indemnity insurance to oil tankers.
After the landmark July 14 nuclear deal in Vienna between Iran and six world powers, major global insurance companies from Italy, Norway, China, South Korea, Taiwan and India have sent representatives to Tehran to discuss cooperation with NITC.
