Dubai: Iran has no need for foreign tankers to ship its crude, the head of the national tanker firm has said. Ali Akbar Safayee, the boss of National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) told the oil ministry’s website that in the wake of sanctions being lifted, “Iran’s crude oil exports are done currently only with the country’s tankers.”
He said that Iran is currently exporting crude oil to China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey and Japan.
The development follows the implementation of an interim nuclear accord, which was signed last November between Iran and six world powers and which took effect on January 20.
NITC has 37 VLCCs, nine suezmaxes and five aframaxes in its fleet plus another 15 on charter.
Last week Safaei told local media that despite sanctions the company controls the second largest oil tanker fleet in the world. Safaei said the NITC fleet now can carry 16m tons of oil, up by 2m tons in the past year. [17/02/14]
