Roknodin Javadi referred to the US’s release of crude oil to the market adding “the export of oil and gas condensate by the US will do the least harm to Iran.”
Managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) pointed out the emergence of a new exporter of crude and gas condensate in the world market; “the countries with high oil production costs will be the first to get affected by the event and consequently will need to limit their production and supply,” he asserted.
Javadi enumerated areas which will suffer the greatest damage by the arrival of US’s oil including the North Sea, the deep waters of Mexico, the deep water Asia and even Africa; “on that account, Iran will experience the least damage even though the American and Western markets will be immediately affected by the increase in supply,” he added.
In response to the comments made by some Western media that Iran’s oil will be sold with astronomical discounts during the post-sanction era, deputy oil minister noted “NIOC has no intention to sell oil to the customers at a lower price.”
The official deemed negative campaign as the root of the comments made by Iran’s rivals in the oil market; “we will only make decisions according to circumstances.”
The American Enterprise Products Partners (EPP) oil company has announced that during the first week of January, 2016 a 600-thousand-barrel cargo sweet crude pumped in South Texas will be exported to a subset of Vitol company in Switzerland, Mehr News Agency reported Wall Street Journal as saying.
The announcement comes less than a week after Congress passed legislation that lifts the 40-year-old ban on exporting US oil.
US oil companies will be facing considerable difficulty to sell oil shipments given the sharp decline in world markets; therefore, many companies will most probably keep oil shipments in storage tanks in the hope of higher prices.
With a daily consumption of 20 million barrels of oil, the US is only producing 9 million and 400 of the required amount within the country and will not be able to compete in the world market as a major oil exporter.
Congress lifted the 40-year-old ban on oil exports, the US seems to remain an exporter of small shipments of light oil to certain countries.
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