Iran's condensate export plunges to lowest since October 2013

By Dalga Khatinoglu

Head of Persian News Service of Trend Agency

Iran's condensate export declined to below 0.2 million barrels per day during last month, indicating the lowest level since Iran reached an agreement with the P5+1 group, regarding its nuclear program.

Iran's state IRNA Agency cited the Custom Administration that the country's total gas condensate exports during first half of current fiscal year (From March 21 to September 22) have reached 9, 233 thousand metric tons.

The total condensate export during H1 of Iran's fiscal year, of course, is 85 percent more than the same period during the previous year, but comparing the volume of the last months with previous months since October 2013, the figure is the lowest.

The figures are extracted from Iranian Custom Administration's monthly reports:

According to the statistics, released by the Custom Administration, Iran's gas condensate export was 196,000 barrels per day during the last month.

Reuters reported on September 30 that Asian buyers imported 921,064 bpd of the Islamic republic's crude in August, the lowest since the last October.

The report says, citing on government and tanker-tracking data that the August figure is 10.5 percent less that the previous seven-month average.

After achieving the nuclear accord between Iran and P5+1 (China, Russia, the U.K, France, The U.S + Germany) on November 24, 2013, Iran's oil export experienced a sudden and huge increase.

Iran's oil export (including gas condensate) soared to 1.65 million bpd in February, about 60 percent more than the 2013 average, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) statistics.

The outcome or the comparison between the monthly data released by Iran's Custom Administration and IEA indicates that the increase in Iran's oil export during 2014 was caused mostly from the gas condensate volume rise.

Before the nuclear accord, Iran's monthly condensate export was below 200,000 bpd, but the statistics indicates that this figure is above 434,000 barrels in average during a period from October 23, 2013 to September 23, 2014.

IRNA didn't publish the last year's figures separately, but according to the Custom Administration's report published last October, Iran exported 3.822 million metric tons (or 173,000 barrels per day) of the gas condensate during the first half of last Iranian fiscal year (March 21 to Sep.22), which was downed by 24.7 percent compared to the same period the previous year.