Any future U.S. administration cannot prevent Iran from boosting its oil production and exports, Iranian Petroleum Minister Jawad Owji said on Wednesday.
“With the measures that have been taken in President Raisi’s government in the field of the oil industry, I should announce that any government that comes to power in the US cannot prevent the export and production of Iranian oil,” Iranian media quoted Owji as telling Parliament today.
Over the past three years, Iran has increased its crude oil production by 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), the petroleum minister said.
During this period, Iran launched 150 oil industry projects, worth a total of $34 billion, according to the minister’s remarks from a few days ago carried by the news service Shana.
The oil industry grew by 20% last year, the highest growth rate of any Iranian sector of the economy, Owji was quoted as saying.
Last month, the minister said that Iran would soon launch 32 oil industry projects worth a total investment of $4.6 billion.
Iran plans to increase its crude oil output to 4 million bpd, the country’s Tasnim news agency reported at the end of May, as cited by Reuters.
No specific sources for the plan were provided but the original report in Tasnim said that “An economic council headed by Iran’s interim president Mohammad Mokhber has approved a plan to raise the country's oil output from 3.6 million barrels per day to 4 million barrels per day.”
Iran has been eager to increase its oil production despite U.S. sanctions that have significantly reduced the market for Iranian oil. Even so, Iran reported an increase in exports of crude recently, with the average daily for the first quarter hitting the highest in six years at 1.56 million bpd according to Vortexa data. Last year, the country exported 1.29 million bpd on average, which was 50% more than a year earlier.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
