Iran has announced plans to pump more oil than it did before previous-US President Trump imposed additional sanctions, a top Iranian oil official said, Bloomberg reported.
The comments were made just before a high-level nuclear talk with are likely to impact Iranian energy-market ambitions.
“Plans are in place to increase oil output to more than 5 million barrels a day,” Mohsen Khojastehmehr, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC), said, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, Bloomberg reported.
Khojastehmehr declined to present any additional details or time frame for the target.
The managing director went on to say that Iran’s daily production capacity will reach four million barrels by March, according to Bloomberg.
The Islamic Republic was pumping around the same amount of oil prior to the imposition of severe economic sanctions by the US after the Trump administration abandoned the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.
Talks between Iran and world powers around reviving the JCPOA are ongoing in Vienna, Austria. The original 2015 deal exchanged sanctions relief, including on the energy sector, for Iran limiting its nuclear activity.
The NIO director said that the country would welcome “any foreign investment” into its energy industry, adding that talks are ongoing with Chinese companies to develop Iran’s oil fields. Details will later be announced once an agreement has been finalised, Khojastehmehr said, according to Bloomberg.
