TEHRAN, Apr. 19 (MNA) – An oil agreement will be sealed on increasing Iran’s crude sales to South Korea during the upcoming visit of the East Asian country’s president to Tehran.


Iran and South Korea have initiated a fresh round of talks on signing new oil deals in time with the East Asian country unblocking a large part of Iran's frozen assets.

Accordingly, South Korea’s First Vice Minister for Industry and Technology Kim Jae-hong and Iranian Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia met and talked in Tehran.

Marzieh Riahi, General Manager of Asia and Oceania at Deputy for International and Commerce at the Oil Ministry, described the details of the held talks between Iranian and South Korean oil officials saying “it has been agreed that three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) will be signed in the energy sector during the visit to Tehran of South Korean President Park Geun-hye in May.”

Riahi emphasized “in addition to the inking of an MoU during the meeting of the two countries’ oil ministers, two more agreements will be sealed with the National Iranian Gas Export Compnay (NIGEC) as well as the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC).”

“The main aspects of cooperation between the two countries include increased purchase of crude oil from Iran, investment in line with technology transfer, investment in Iran’s natural gas transmission pipeline, mini LNG and LNG as well as petrochemical cooperation,” she continued.

India, China, Japan and South Korea mark four traditional customers of Iranian crude oil in Asia while South Korea has accounted for the most amount of increase in purchase during the post-JCPOA period.

A report released by Iran's director for OPEC affairs reveals that the volume of Iran’s crude export to these four Asian countries has experienced a 25 per cent rise in February 2016.

Meanwhile, India had had the most amount of oil purchase from Iran in the last two years with more than 113 thousand barrels.

However, China, with a daily import of about 538 thousand barrels, still remains as Iran’s largest oil customer followed by South Korea with 283 thousand barrels per day as well as India with a daily purchase of 215 thousand barrels.

By Mehr News Agency