Iran is looking to put an end to a six-year hiatus in its oil swap operations in the Caspian Sea region. An official said the state-run National Iranian Oil Company has assigned Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) to resume oil swap with neighboring countries.
“NICO, which used to be the link between Iran and Caspian Sea littoral states, is tasked with resuming swap operations,” Hamidreza Shahdoust, the head of North Oil Terminals Company, was quoted as saying by Shana.
Sanctions brought to a halt Iran’s swap deals with northern neighbors that turned to Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan Pipeline as an alternate route to carry crude oil to Europe.
Deputy Oil Minister Amirhossein Zamaninia said in May Iran was in preliminary negotiations with Turkmenistan, Russia and Kazakhstan on oil and gas swap.
Another senior official said in December that Iran was ready to start swapping 300 million cubic meters of natural gas per day from Russia in the north with those of southern terminals in the Persian Gulf.
Iran has reportedly been engaged in swap negotiations with Russia’s Rosneft and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic after reaching a historic agreement with six world powers on its nuclear program in July.
