How Much Oil Can Iran Export?

Radio Farda - Bijan Namdar Zangeneh, Iran's Minister of Oil, has instructed his affiliated organizations to prepare for a rapid increase in oil exports immediately after the complete suspension of sanctions. Reza Valizadeh asked Fereydoun Khavand, an economist residing in Paris, how much Iran's oil export capacity is and how much it can increase. According to OPEC statistics, Iran currently produces 2.77 million barrels of oil per day, of which nearly one million barrels are exported. Before the sanctions, Iran produced nearly four million barrels of oil, with 2.2 million barrels exported. Therefore, it can be said that if the final agreement is approved in June, Iran could have a production capacity of nearly four million and an export capacity of 2.2 million barrels per day, provided that its oil production facilities have not been damaged and their capacity has not decreased due to the problems caused by the past three years of sanctions. Another issue is the exact timing of the suspension of sanctions related to oil exports and the pace of their lifting, in relation to the guarantees requested regarding Iran's nuclear program and what will be requested in the final agreement. Given all these ambiguities and uncertainties, some energy experts predict that an increase in Iran's export capacity will not happen before next year. The Mehr news agency, quoting Pirouz Mousavi, the CEO of Iran's Oil Terminals Company, reports that Iran's oil export capacity could reach six million barrels per day. Can this scenario be taken seriously? Before the revolution, Iran's oil production reached nearly six million barrels per day, and since domestic oil consumption was much lower than today, over five million barrels were exported. If we accept this oil official's statement regarding Iran's potential to increase its exports to six million barrels per day, the country's oil production would need to reach eight million barrels per day. On paper, achieving such a goal is not impossible within about ten years, provided that Iran can attract the world's most reputable oil companies, with tens of billions of dollars in investment and the most complex technologies, to the country. Beyond this ambitious scenario, the most realistic medium-term goal is to produce five million barrels of oil per day, which also cannot be achieved without attracting a significant amount of foreign investment and technology. Considering the outlook for the final nuclear agreement, what will Iran's oil revenue be in 1394? To see the impact of lifting sanctions on Iran's oil revenue, one must wait for the year 1395. In the current year, if the price of oil fluctuates between fifty to sixty dollars per barrel, the country's oil revenue with the current export volume will likely be between 18 to 22 billion dollars.