Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh stated that now that the Western sanctions against the country have been lifted, Tehran intends to export up to 300 thousand barrels of crude oil per day to Europe.
Iran has officially announced the estimated volume of oil exports to Europe, which was the most important market for the Islamic Republic of Iran until the moment when the majority of western countries introduced restrictive measures in response to Tehran's nuclear program in 2012. According to Zanganeh, over the next few months Iran will try to increase the total volume of oil exports to 500 thousand barrels per day due to supplies to Asian countries.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran's far-reaching plans will toughen the already difficult competition between the major oil-exporting countries – Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States – and force them to look for new ways to fight for their shares of the European energy resources market, RIA Novosti reports.
Earlier, a source at the National Iranian Oil Company stated about Iran's intention to refuse to pay for the oil supplied in dollars. Tehran intends to issue invoices for oil exports in euros. It is reported that this relates to the contracts with the French company Total, the Spanish corporation Cepsa, and the trading division of 'Lukoil' Litasco.
"We will add a clause to our invoices about the fact that the buyers of our oil will have to pay us in euros, taking into account the exchange rate to the dollar at the time of the supply of raw materials," the source in the National Iranian Oil Company noted. Tehran is going to regain the financial assets frozen in connection with the sanctions in the European currency, the value of which in the US currency amounts to 100 billion dollars.
