‘Oil market ready for Iran comeback’

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said on Monday that a top priority for Iran in a post-sanctions era will be to get back the share of the global oil market it lost to its rivals as a result of the US-engineered sanctions, stressing that the country will not wait for anybody’s permission over this.    

Zangeneh told reporters that some OPEC members have welcomed Iran’s return to the oil market and that the traditional clients of Iran’s oil are waiting for new purchases from the country.

He emphasized that Iran is ready to increase its export capacity by 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) immediately after the sanctions are removed in lieu with the nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries.

Zangeneh further said American oil giants can participate in Iran’s oil projects. However, he added that they have still not received the green-light from the US government to do so.

Iran’s current oil production is estimated to be around 2.7 million barrels per day of which about 1 million barrels are exported – as required by the current regime of sanctions.

Iran’s oil minister elsewhere in his remarks emphasized that he sees no imminent change in OPEC’s output strategy even as he urged fellow members of the group to cut their collective production to buoy crude to a range of $70 to $80 a barrel.

“No one is happy” with prices at current levels, Bloomberg has quoted him as saying.

“OPEC should decide to manage the market by reducing the level of production,” Zangeneh said. “It seems that the atmosphere is not well for making a change in the market.”

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