Speaking to Shana, Saeed Khoshroo, the director of international affairs at NIOC, said the prices were charged based on the global oil prices; therefore, if the traded shipments were quoted lower during IRENEX Sunday session than the base price announced by NIOC in an earlier announcement, it was because of price fluctuations in the global market.
NIOC had previously put $79.15 for each barrel of crude oil as the base price for the shipments traded at IRENEX; however, the 280,000 barrels sold on the first session of IRENEX (Oct. 28) were priced $74.85 per barrel.
"Oil prices have fallen in the past two weeks, and the lower prices do not come as discounts,” he said.
Brent crude prices reached their highest level in four years in the week that NIOC released the announcement for offering crude oil in the Energy Exchange, which were followed by a downtrend.
NIOC offered a million barrels of crude oil on IRENEX on Sunday, of which 280,000 barrels were traded.
The official refused to reveal the identity of the buyers.
Khoshroo further said that the remaining 720,000 barrels would be offered in the following days but would not be priced any lower than Sunday prices at Iran Energy Exchange.
He further said supply of one million barrels of oil at the trade floor of IRENEX would continue with the current trend, and changes could be made if needed in future supplies.
In this regard, NIOC released an announcement on Saturday, saying, “banks of Pasargad, Tejarat, Tose-e Saderat Iran, Sepah, Saderat, Mellat, Melli and Parsian are qualified to issue guarantees for crude oil trades in the stock market.”
The plan for selling export crude oil through energy stock market is carried out with the aim of diversifying crude oil export methods and participation of private sector in this plan.
The plan of supplying crude oil in stock market has frequently been raised in the past years but it doomed to failure. Finally, the plan became operational at the unsparing support of the government and special emphasis of First Vice President Es’hagh Jahangiri.
SHANA/MNA