In 2012 European Union (EU) banned Iranian oil import and US (which banned its companies from buying Iranian oil at the end of the 1980s) has introduced the secondary sanctions banning purchase of Iranian oil by the third parties, reported RBC.
As a result of that Iranian oil export dropped by more than twice – from 2.5 million barrels a day in 2011 to 1.1 million barrels a day in 2013 (the first full year since introduction of sanctions). After that Iran went down from the second place in the list of the biggest oil makers of OPEC member-states to the fifth place after Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Kuwait.
Till the mid-2012, when the sanctions have been introduced, Islamic Republic delivered oil to 21 countries. When the sanctions were partially lifted in November 2013, six countries, including China, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Taiwan, were allowed to buy Iranian oil.
The US sanctions are not applied to deliveries of Iranian condensate, which is used as a raw material to manufacture gasoline and products of petrochemistry, if the buyers lack alternative sources of delivery of this type of hydrocarbons.
From January to May 2014 export of oil and condensate from Iran increased by 300,000 barrels a day up to 1.4 million barrels a day, according to EIA. Almost the entire growth fell to the deliveries to China and India. As far as export of crude oil is concerned, according to JODI estimates, in December 2014 and January 2015 gas deliveries from Iran were stable at 1.33 million barrels a day.
The Iranian factor will exert an additional pressure on the prices, as a result of which in 2015 average annual oil price could be $50.00 per barrel.
