NIOC: Stocks of Oil, Gas Condensates at Sea Shrinking

Iran has no stockpiles of crude oil at sea and floating gas condensates are rapidly dwindling as exports pick up in wake of the lifting of international economic sanctions, says a senior official at the NIOC.

"Iran has no cargo of seaborne crude and gas condensates exports have surpassed 600,000 barrels per day. We previously had 20 tankers loaded with condensates," Mohsen Qamsari, director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company said, Mehr News Agency reported on Sunday.

Qamsari added that NIOC is gradually shipping out the remainder of condensates as "all of Iran's oil is being marketed."

Gas condensate is an ultra light type of oil found in the Persian Gulf gas fields. Some customers of Iranian crude, such as South Korea, include condensates in their oil purchases data without giving a breakdown.

Iran sold 600,000 bpd of condensates for September, including about 100,000 bpd from inventories, to meet robust demand in Asia, two sources said. September crude exports increased slightly from the previous month to about 2.2 million bpd, they said.

According to reports, NIOC drew on condensates stocks from floating storage and onshore tanks in September to help meet growth in demand from China, South Korea, Japan and India.

The lifting of international sanctions in mid-January gave the OPEC producer a fresh lifeline to reassert itself in the global crude market. According to Oil Ministry data, Iran pumps 3.8 million barrels of crude and condensates per day.

Iran is now the third-largest producer of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq. It aims to raise output to around 4 million bpd in the short-term, its peak production level before the tightening of sanctions in 2011 and 2012.

-------Reports on Large Stockpiles

In the lead-up to Tehran's nuclear accord in July 2015, there were several reports about huge amounts of Iranian crude oil and condensates stored on supertankers at sea.

In June 2015, Reuters estimated that Iran had piled up as much as 40 million barrels of oil off its coasts in the Persian Gulf, mainly on vessels belonging to the National Iranian Tanker Company.

Iran and the six world powers (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany) reached a historic agreement in July last year on revoking some financial and trade restrictions in return for Tehran's commitment to limiting its nuclear program.

On January 18, just days after the nuclear-related restrictions were removed, CNN placed Iran's floating stockpile at 46 million barrels. Another report claimed that Iran was using 20 to 25 ships at the time to hold the oil stockpile that "it could not sell when sanctions were in place."

Iran ships most of its crude to its traditional oil buyers, namely China, India, South Korea, Japan and Turkey. Officials say between 600,000-700,000 bpd of crude and condensates are sent to Europe.

Iran's total crude oil and condensates sales reached around 2.8 million barrels per day in September, Reuters reported this month, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter.