Turkey imported over 2.6 million tons of crude oil from Iran in the first half of 2016, Shana said, citing a report by Azerbaijan's Trend News Agency.
The report said that over the six-month period, Turkey's total oil import from Iran amounted to 2.62 million tons, or roughly 105,000 barrels a day.
In 2015, Iran exported a total of 5.6 million barrels of crude to the neighboring country, which made it the third largest oil supplier to Turkey.
According to BP, Turkey imported 38.8 million tons of oil over the past year, or 835,000 barrels per day.
Earlier this month, the managing director of National Iranian Gas Company Hamidreza Araqi, noted that Iran can increase natural gas export to Turkey to 36 million cubic meters per day through the existing infrastructure.
"Iran's gas export to Turkey amounts to 30 mcm per day and the infrastructure is in place to increase the export volume by 6 mcm per day," he added.
The official noted that as soon as a new agreement is concluded between the two sides, work will start to expand the infrastructure.
Tehran has contracts with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey to export gas, but the lion’s share of export goes to Turkey.
By 2021, annual exports are planned to reach 68-80 billion cubic meters. Of this amount, 50 bcm will be sold to neighbors and 30 bcm—in the best-case scenario–to the European Union.
Traditional Customers
As Iran’s largest crude customer, China's imports from Iran rose 16.1% in June over a year earlier to 780,175 barrels per day, up from 671,176 barrels in May, Reuters reported.
Shipments have held relatively steady as Tehran has been focusing on recouping lost markets in Europe after sanctions were lifted in January.
India, Iran's top oil client after China, shipped in about 523,000 bpd oil in July, an increase of 37% from June and more than double from a year ago, revised tanker arrival data obtained from trade sources show.
According to South Korea's customs data, the country brought in 1.10 million tons of Iranian crude oil in July, or 260,910 barrels per day, 285% above the 286,374 tons imported a year earlier under the sanctions regime.
Iran’s January oil exports to its fourth biggest crude customer Japan witnessed a rise of 10.7% to reach 195,000 barrels a day.
