A legislator said Iran earned $20 billion from oil sales in the first seven months of the current Iranian year (21 March-23 October). Ali Mohammad Ahmadi, a member of Majlis Planning and Budget Committee, also told Tasnim News Agency on Monday that Iran’s oil export revenues exceeded $23 billion, of which $20 billion were received in the same period. “During the first seven months of this year, a daily average of 2,722,000 barrels of oil have been produced, with the daily amount of oil exports standing at 935,000 barrels a day in the same period,” he added. Ahmadi noted that the average price of Iranian crude during the period was $103 per barrel.
On December 4, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Iran’s oil exports could be back to pre-sanctions level in a few months. “We have no technical difficulties to expand our exports and to return to 4 millions barrels per day (bpd),” he said, stressing that increasing exports is our right. On the time required for Iran to return its production to the pre-sanctions levels, the Iranian oil minister predicted that it would be the beginning of the next Iranian year (to start March 21, 2014). Iran’s crude oil exports dropped from 2.5 million bpd in 2011 to 1.2 million bpd in 2012, according to the minister. In August, Zanganeh said the top priority of his ministry was to raise the country’s “oil production capacity” to 4 million barrels a day. “Increasing Iran’s oil output will boost (the country’s) bargaining power in international bodies like OPEC, so the oil production capacity must increase immediately to above four million bpd by the end of the current year,” he said.