TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iran’s oil minister on Sunday said that not a single cent of revenues earned from oil and gas condensate exports has been blocked since the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi took office in August 2021.
Javad Owji made the remarks in a meeting between heads of the executive bodies’ passive defense committees hosted by the Oil Ministry.
He pointed to the release of $7 billion of Iran’s gas condensate assets South Korea had frozen due to US sanctions, adding that gas condensates had been exported in the late 2010s.
The Oil Ministry managed to supply 100 percent of the country’s 2021 budget and 94 percent of its 2022 budget, the oil minister added, SHANA reported.
The current administration faced different challenges, including a 250 mcm gas imbalance, 87 million barrels of gas condensates in storage offshore, and budget deficit, when it took office, Owji emphasized.
“We have managed to export a major portion of gas condensates to new markets and used a part of them in the country’s refineries and petrochemical complexes,” he explained.
Iran is currently producing 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of gas condensates per day, said the minister, adding a single-day condensate export disorder could cause widespread disruption while condensate exports had been reduced to 7,000 barrels a day during the previous administration.
Touching upon a cyberattack on 4,400 gas stations of Iran in October 2021, Owji said the problem was fixed in the shortest time possible and the fuel system returned to normal.
Iran’s crude oil output now stands at 3.19 million barrels per day (bpd) and the output will rise to 3.3 million bpd within the next 10 days, the oil minister added.
