Although the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and France’s Total have signed an agreement for the daily sale of 150 to 200 crude barrels in Paris at the presence of the two countries’ presidents, Total would not mark Iran’s first oil customer in the post-sanction era.
Accordingly, NIOC inked the first oil sale deal with a European company located in the Mediterranean littoral and it has been estimated that the first European tanker will arrive in Iranian oil terminals by the end of February this year.
Deputy Oil Minister Roknodin Javadi, who refused to mention the name of the destination country in the newly-signed agreement, referred to the approval of the plan to export 2.3 million barrels of crude oil as part of the next year (to begin March 21) budget bill; “the stage of increasing oil production and exports by 500 thousand barrels will soon become fully operational.”
