Iran has an “extensive plan” to bolster its crude production capacity, said Zanganeh on Monday, stressing that the US-engineered sanctions cannot prevent the Islamic Republic from achieving that end.
“Iran will utilize all facilities to raise the level of its oil exports and will not wait for the US permission,” added the Iranian oil minister.
On Sunday, the Iranian oil minister said the production capacity of Iran’s giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf would increase by 100 million cubic meters per day in the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 21, 2014.
According to a monthly report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) on March 14, exports of Iranian crude, including condensates, reached 1.41 million barrels per day in January and February this year, the highest level since 2013.
The increase followed an interim nuclear deal clinched between Iran and the P5+1 -- the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany -- in Switzerland, Geneva, , on November 24 last year. The deal took effect on January 20.
Under the deal, the six powers agreed to ease some of the existing sanctions against the Islamic Republic in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period.
At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors, over its nuclear energy program, in a bid to prevent other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
