TEHRAN, Aug 2: Iran has temporarily halted exports of fuel oil because of domestic needs during a severe drought, a senior official was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Iran is a regular exporter of fuel oil to Asia. But industry sources said on Saturday it will halt exports of the heavy fuel from August as it builds domestic stockpiles ahead of winter, and due to a heavy maintenance schedule in the fourth-quarter.
However, Ali-Asghar Arshid, international affairs director at the National Iranian Oil Company, said the export halt was due to a drought which has hit hydro-generated power and forced Iran to introduce daily power outages.
“Because of the current drought and the needs for fuel of power stations, the export of heavy fuel has been temporarily stopped,” Arshid was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.
Iran’s decision came on the heels of Saudi Arabia’s move to stop exporting spot fuel oil after its peak summer demand season, due to rising domestic requirements from domestic power plants and new secondary refining units.
The moves by the two biggest fuel oil exporters in the Middle East will worsen the current tight supply in Asia.
Opec quotas
Iran expects Opec to discuss ways of controlling the quotas of member countries at its next meeting in September, the official news agency IRNA said.
“In case of the continuation of a downward trend in oil price, one of the serious discussions in the next Opec meeting will be definitely the quotas,” IRNA quoted Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari as saying.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to hold its next regular meeting on September 9 in Vienna.
“Opec, as the responsible body to control the market, should be more meticulous for the control of quotas,” the oil minister said.
“The (member) countries that have increased their capacity should control it... The issue is that some countries have been supplying more than their quota,” he added.
Nozari said in July that Iran was against any hike in the cartel’s output quota despite continued high crude prices.
—Agencies
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