Iran will have to fulfil a list if stringent conditions regarding its nuclear capabilities in order for economic sanctions to be lifted.
In a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, major world powers agreed a comprehensive plan for Iran’s nuclear programme due to be signed in Vienna at the end of June.
Under the agreement, the Islamic Republic is required to complete a number of tasks designed at taking its nuclear activities down to a minimum in a process that is expected to take at least six months according to experts.
Once the conditions have been fulfilled, almost all economic sanctions imposed by the West will be lifted allowing the country to ramp up its crude exports.
Iran currently produces around 2.7mn barrels of oil per day, of which 1mn bpd is exported under the terms of the current sanctions.
But productions could easily be increased by 1m barrels per day (bpd) within months of sanctions being lifted, the oil minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said recently.
According to estimates Iran has between 7mn and 35mn barrels of crude in storage that could be immediately put on the market.
Some experts have seen this as cause for concern claiming that the lifting of sanctions on Iran could result in more oil being added to the global oversupply of crude and push prices further down.
Iran holds 9% of the world’s proven oil reserves and in 2011 the country it a production capacity of over 4mn bpd, according to data from BP
