Iran plans to start offering oil for exports via its national stock exchange as early as next week, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on Monday, quoting the head of the state oil company and deputy oil minister Ali Kardor.
Iran will be offering one million barrels via the stock exchange, with all those barrels bound for exports, Kardor, who is managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), said.
In July, Iran's First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri said that the country would be looking to offer oil via the stock exchange because of the U.S. sanctions on Iran that will restrict its oil exports, IRNA reports.
While analysts now expect that the losses of Iran's oil exports could be higher than 1 million bpd with the U.S. sanctions returning in early November, Iran continues to claim that it has the means to 'defeat' the restrictions, continue to sell its oil, and 'easily' get the revenues from oil sales.
Iran's oil ministry's news service Shana quoted on Sunday Kardor as saying that Iran has no plans to reduce its oil production, that NIOC has access to all its revenues, and that it "easily collects the money from selling crude oil."
The national oil company is also providing by itself coverage for shipments, Kardor said.
According to OPEC's secondary sources, Iran's oil production for August-the latest available official OPEC data-was 3.584 million bpd, down by 150,000 bpd compared to July.
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Iran is also said to have returned to storing oil in tankers as the sanctions are cutting its ability to ship the oil. Moreover, the Islamic Republic is also reportedly switching off tanker tracking systems, a method that Tehran is said to have used in the previous round of sanctions in 2012-2015.
The U.S. efforts to choke off Iran's oil this time look much more coercive, and even the largest refiner in Tehran's biggest single customer China may have come under U.S. pressure. Last week, reports emerged that Sinopec is halving Iranian oil imports as of September.
According to preliminary tanker tracking data by Bloomberg, Iran's oil exports have dropped by 870,000 bpd since April this year and are on track for less than 2 million bpd for a second consecutive month in September.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More