No US administration can hinder Iran’s oil exports: Owji
Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji said no administration in the United States can curb the Islamic Republic’s oil exports and that the oil sales has “jumped” over the past three years despite US sanctions.
Owji made the statement while presenting a report on the country’s latest status of oil and gasoline output during a plenary session at the Iranian Parliament on Wednesday, Press TV reported.
He said Iran’s crude oil production increased by more than 1.4 million barrels through round-the-clock work and relentless efforts in the past three years, adding, “Despite more than 600 new sanctions on the export of oil and petrochemical products, today, we are witnessing a jump in the export of oil and collection of the country’s arrears.”
Owji asserted that the amount of Iran’s oil exports has tripled compared to the beginning of the sitting administration in 2020 and the foreign exchange revenue has also increased.
Pointing to the fuel imbalance at the onset of the current administration, Owji said the Oil Ministry was taken over at a time that Iran’s daily output stood at 2.1 million barrels and that the oil exports had reached its lowest rate in the past decade.
“We had about 87 million barrels of oil aboard tankers at sea, of which 30 million were heavy and extra heavy crude. We had no sales in heavy and extra heavy oil at the beginning of the 13th administration,” he said.
‘Not even one cent in
arrears’
The Iranian Oil Ministry also underlined in a statement on Wednesday that the administration of late president Ebrahim Raisi laid the ground for the sale of oil and gas without the JCPOA and the Western-led financial crime watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
“Today, crude oil and gas condensate shipments are exported to many countries, and at the apex of the sanctions, we do not even have one cent in arrears,” the ministry said.
The US under former president Donald Trump reinstated crippling sanctions on Iran after unilaterally walking out of Iran’s nuclear deal in May 2018, despite the Islamic Republic’s full compliance with the terms of the 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers, known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The administration of US President Joe Biden, which has claimed a diplomatic approach to Iran and efforts to return to the 2015 nuclear program, has not only failed to return to the agreement but has also tightened the sanctions regime against the Islamic Republic.
Moreover, a bipartisan group of over 40 US House lawmakers has called on the Biden administration to “expeditiously implement” stringent new anti-Iran sanctions targeting the country’s oil exports to China.
The Iranian oil trade has allowed “the country to raise over $100 billion just since 2021,” the bipartisan group of congresspeople led by Mike Lawler, Josh Gottheimer, and Jared Moskowitz argued in their letter.
“However, Iran does not act alone. China is the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, buying a significant majority of 80-90% of these exports. We have been clear that the US must act decisively to stop the Iran-China oil trade and eliminate this significant source of Iran’s revenue,” the letter added.