By Rania El Gamal and Florence Tan
SINGAPORE, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Iran expects to maintain overall crude and condensate exports at around 2.6 million barrels per day for the rest of 2017, after it sold out of oil held in storage and as growing domestic appetite reins in shipments abroad, a senior official in the nation’s state oil company said on Monday.
Shipments of condensate will be dented by a “technical problem” at the South Pars field, with maintenance expected to take 1-2 months to complete, National Iranian Oil Company’s Director of International Affairs Saeid Khoshrou told Reuters.
Exports of condensate, an ultra-light crude used in petrochemical production, will fall to about 450,000 bpd after the maintenance, from an average of 550,000 bpd over the last 15 months, the official said on the sidelines of the APPEC industry conference in Singapore.
“We will not have more than 450,000 bpd available to export,” Khoshrou said.
NIOC has informed buyers in Asia that it could reduce condensate exports in October because of the maintenance at South Pars, industry sources have said.
By the second quarter of this year, Iran had cleared excess oil stored onshore and offshore as the easing of international sanctions in January 2016 enabled it to ramp up exports.
The company is also increasing output at the first of three condensate splitters at the Persian Gulf Star Refinery (PGSR). Each splitter has a capacity of 120,000 bpd.
(Reporting by Florence Tan and Rania El-Gamal; Editing by Joseph Radford)
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