Iran has opened its first oil terminal on the Gulf of Oman to avoid using Strait of Hormuz which has become a focus of regional tensions for several decades.
According to the outgoing President Hassan Rouhani of Iran, the opening of the oil terminal was one of the Ministry of Oil’s projects to achieve a leap in oil production.
Rouhani also said that the opening of the terminal is a “historic day” for the Iranian nation. The world has come to realize that Iran has taken an important national step, he said.
He added that the export of oil through new refineries, not on the Gulf, but in the Sea of Oman, is very important.
The new terminal was opened in the port of Jask, south of the Strait of Hormuz, which is under US control, as part of sanctions re-imposed by former US President Donald Trump on Tehran three years ago.
The state-run Al-Alam channel indicated that the new terminal is connected to a pipe about a thousand kilometers long to transport crude oil produced from Khuzestan (southwest), especially the Western Karun fields, for export outside the Gulf.
The channel added “With the start of exporting crude oil from Jask in the Sea of Oman, Iran will have the opportunity to diversify its oil export terminals with more security and stability, in addition to reducing the number of ships carrying it.”
Strategic plan
In turn, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said: “The progress rate in the project has reached 82%, and it is the largest strategic plan implemented in the Rouhani government”.
Zanganeh explained that 250 local companies participated in the project and more than 10,000 people worked in it.
In May 2018, the United States re-imposed sanctions on Tehran, after Trump withdrew from an international agreement on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Iran has a floating stock of oil (about 70 million barrels), which it will sell as soon as the economic sanctions are completely lifted, and the nuclear agreement with the United States and the European Union is returned.
The volume of Iranian oil in floating storage reached between 50 and 60 million barrels, according to estimates by investment companies IHS Markit, FGE and OilX.
