"We have learnt from the sanctions that we can run the country by exporting one million barrels of oil per day,” Zanganeh said, addressing a conference of the National Development Fund on Iran's Persian Gulf Kish Island.
He, however, underlined that if an extra 1.5 million barrels of oil is exported it will generate an annual income of $54.5 billion which can result in more than $800 billion of more investment in the oil industry in the next several years.
Earlier this year, former Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi downplayed the effectiveness of the western sanctions against the country's oil industry, and stressed that “Tehran is able to bypass the embargos relying on domestic experts and resources”.
“The Iranian oil industry can continue the path of growth and development rapidly and attain its goals relying on its capable human resources,” Qassemi said in Tehran in July.
Qassemi said despite some problems, Iranian experts and technicians active in the country's oil industry have been able to get over the hurdles successfully.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Despite the rules enshrined in the (NPT entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.
Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.
