Page 23 - IRANRptMay21

Iran’s exports to Russia up 105% in 2020 to $800mn says ambassador
Iran’s oil exports to China ‘expected to surge to record highs in March’
Azerbaijan.
Iran's exports to the Caspian Sea littoral states of Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan was reported as 3,125,70 tonnes with a worth of $1.32bn.
Exports to Azerbaijan to 1.38mn tonnes worth $510.9mn; to Russia, 1.051mn tonnes worth $504.5mn; to Kazakhstan, 337,837 tonnes worth $167.8mn; and to Turkmenistan, 733,000 tonnes worth $137.4mn.
Imports to Iran from the four countries amounted to 3.117mn tonnes worth $1.2bn. By far the most were from Russia. The Russian Federation exported 2.93 tonnes of goods worth $1.07bn.
Exports from Azerbaijan to Iran amounted to 28,386 tonnes worth $76.1mn; from Kazakhstan to Iran, they stood at 89,966 tonnes worth $37.3mn; and from Turkmenistan, they reached 65,400 tonnes at $20.5mn.
Iran’s exports to Russia expanded 105% in 2020 to a value of $800mn, according to Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali, as cited by the Tehran Times.
Since October 2018, Iran has enjoyed the benefits of a temporary three-year preferential trade agreement (PTA) with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which reduces many tariffs on Iranian exports to bloc members Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia and Belarus. Jalali noted that the trade boost came despite the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Russia's economy is a large economy and this country has about $260bn in imports, so we, as Russia's neighbour, can provide some of the goods it needs and have our share of the market of this country,” he was quoted as saying. “Our relations with Russia are mostly in political, security and defence fields, and on the other hand, due to the mutual economic potential that exists, economic relations between the two countries should undoubtedly be developed and expanded,” he added.
Jalali has been in touch with Russian officials at the Federal Customs Service to explore ways for Iran and Russia to strengthen bilateral customs cooperation and solve problems faced by Iranian truckers at the Russian border.
Iranian crude exports to China are reportedly surging and are expected to hit record highs in March despite the fact that US sanctions imposed under former president Donald Trump with the stated purpose of driving Iran’s oil shipments to zero are still in place.
It is anticipated that Chinese imports of Iranian crude will hit 856,000 b/d in March, the most in almost two years and up 129% m/m, Bloomberg reported traders and analysts as saying. Various other news outlets reported during the week that so much Iranian oil was arriving in China that its ports and storage tanks were getting clogged up. This was particularly said to be the case in the province of Shandong, which accounts for a quarter of China’s refining capacity.
“The surge is related to lower costs but also, politically, to a sense that this might be an interim period between the outgoing [Trump] administration and the Biden administration figuring out its position on Iran,” Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Program at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, was cited as saying by Bloomberg.
In late January, on the sidelines of the Iran Oil Show in Tehran, Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia said that Iranian oil would not create any surplus on the world oil market and that the market would be able to accommodate the country’s maximum oil output of around 3.9mn to 4mn b/d.
23 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com