Southeast Asian states, including Taiwan, have increased oil imports from Iran significantly.
"New oil contracts with Taiwan indicate a drastic surge in the volume of oil export to this state," Mohsen Qamsari, director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company, told Mehr News Agency.
Commenting on oil export to Iran's traditional customers in Asia, the official added that the volume of crude export to CPC, Taiwan's state-owned petroleum, natural gas and gasoline company, and Formosa Petrochemical Corporation has witnessed a considerable rise.
"The Persian Gulf oil-rich state's export to Taiwan never came to a halt during sanctions, yet as soon as they became history, the amount of sale went up dramatically," he said.
Asked about the amount, Qamsari announced that the exact volume is not clear yet, though it experienced a twofold rise in the last few months.
According to the Taiwanese oil officials, Iran's oil export to Taiwan's refineries will increase by 20% by the end of 2016, exceeding 60,000 barrels per day from 3,600.
Taiwan's CPC and FPC spokesmen had noted that they were planning to increase imports from Iran by as much as the pre-sanctions level, standing at 60,000 bpd.
According to Lin Keh-yen, FPC's executive vice president, the Taiwanese enterprise and the National Iranian Oil Company reached an agreement to provide FPC with more crude.
Iran's New Oil Market
"Oil exports to Sri Lanka have not been launched yet," Qamsari said, adding that talks are being held between NIOC and Sri Lanka's state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to resume oil export to this country in the near future.
Qamsari referred to Sri Lanka as a traditional customer of Iranian crude and said Iran is ready to resume crude supply to the island nation in the Indian Ocean.
"During the last three years, some countries have taken Iran's market share, but we are determined to reclaim our lost share sooner or later," he said.
According to reports, Sri Lanka's crude demand is around 50,000 barrels a day and the country's biggest oil refinery has roughly the same processing capacity.
Iran reportedly supplied 40,000-45,000 bpd of oil to Sri Lanka, more than 90% of the country's oil demand, but US-engineered sanctions paved the way for other Persian Gulf producers such as OPEC kingpin Saudi to take Iran's place in the Sri Lankan crude market.
Sri Lanka reportedly purchased Iranian crude from various countries via third parties not to violate the US and EU sanctions that banned oil and trade deals with the Islamic Republic.
Tehran has invested in Sri Lankan oil refineries to help the country double its oil production capacity.
Susil Premajayantha, Sri Lanka's oil minister, believes that the quality of Iran's oil is superior to that of Saudi Arabia's as it contains much less sulfur.
"Using Saudi oil in our refineries has resulted in producing less gasoline," he said, adding that refining 5,000 tons of Iran's oil gives us 1,250 tons of gasoline whereas refining the same amount of Saudi crude produces 600 tons of the strategic commodity.
