After months of negotiations and the removal of international sanctions, the first shipment of Iranian gas oil was exported to Tajikistan to turn the Central Asian country into the third customer of Iran’s fuel oil after Iraq and Afghanistan.
Provincial Director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) Mohammad-Mehdi Gharaei noted that the first ever gas oil shipment to Tajikistan was transported through land borders on Khorasan Razavi province.
“Previously, Iranian oil products had merely been exported to Afghanistan via Dogharoun Border as the biggest border and customs office between the two sides,” stressed the official adding “in view of the post-JCPOA conditions, the request to purchase Iranian gas oil on the part of Tajikistan has been carried out in early February.”
Gharaei maintained that the amount of gasoil export to the Central Asian country has been 2.9 million liters in the first shipment; “considering the high quality of Iranian oil products, more demand is expected to occur on the part of neighboring countries.”
Meanwhile, NIOPDC Deputy Managing Director for International Affairs Esmaeil Hasham-Firouz had earlier evaluated the consumer market of Tajikistan for gas oil to be 2.5 to 3 million liters per day; “among the Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are producers and some exporters of various oil products while Tajikistan remain as a potential market for Iranian gas oil exports.”
Hasham-Firouz had also deemed Georgia and Armenia as customers of the country’s oil products recalling “oil products, especially gas oil and fuel gas are deployed to the two countries in the form of single-piece shipment.”
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