Iran oil exports to Asian buyers up 17 percent: Report

Iran’s oil exports to its top four Asian customers increased by 17.2 percent in February from a year ago, a report says.

According to the Monday report by Reuters, Iran’s four biggest buyers — China, India, Japan and South Korea — bought 1.37 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude, up from 1.17 bpd a year ago.

China, Iran’s biggest oil customer, lifted its Iranian oil imports by 6 percent to more than 552 thousand bpd last month.

South Korea also doubled its crude imports from Iran to over 290 thousand bpd.

Iranian imports by Japan rose 21.7 percent to 260,820 bpd in February, while Iran’s oil exports to India declined 8.7 percent to around 266,000 bpd.

Iran’s crude oil exports have been rising over the past months ever since Tehran reached a breakthrough deal with six world powers over its nuclear energy program last November.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — plus Germany signed the Geneva deal on November 24, 2013. The two sides started to implement the agreement on January 20.

Under the Geneva agreement, the six countries agreed to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period.

Iran, an OPEC member, holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves.

The country’s total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Heavy and extra heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.