A senior member of Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical exporters union (OPEX) said on Monday that oil exports from the country are expected to reach $43 billion in the year to March 20, down from nearly $47 billion reported in the previous calendar year.
Hamid Hosseini added that the total oil and petroleum product exports from Iran had reached nearly $60 billion in the year to late March.
Hosseini said that Iran had exported $20 billion worth of oil and petroleum products in the five months to late August, down more than 16% from the same period last year.
He said the fall in oil export revenues this calendar year has been a result of lower oil prices in international markets, adding that Iran has sold oil at an average price of $63.5 per barrel in the April-August period, which he said is shy of an annual budget target of $68 per barrel.
The businessman said that oil export volumes had also declined from records of 1.8 million barrels per day reported in the last calendar year and in the early months of the current calendar year.
“Thus, there are concerns that oil revenue expected for this year’s budget could not be materialized,” the OPEX spokesman was quoted as saying during a news briefing.
Hosseini said that Iran’s exports of petrochemical and petroleum products, including asphalt, methanol, and some petrochemical products, had declined this calendar year because of an explosion in the country’s largest container port in late April, a 12-day war with the Israeli regime in June, as well as issues with the domestic supply and production of petroleum and petrochemical products.
Press TV