
(Photo credit: AP)
The head of the Iran-Oman Joint Economic Committee, Mohsen Zarrabi, announced on 20 April that the total volume of trade between Iran and Oman skyrocketed to $1.336 billion and with a 53 percent growth over the past year.
Zarrabi also said that ”Iran’s export to Oman rose 63 percent to stand at $716 million in 1400, from $438 million in 1399,” he further noted that ”Oman not only did not close its borders during the pandemic, when most countries closed their borders to Iranian goods, but also increased shipping lines to Iran.”
The official also reported that one of the major plans that the Iranian government is going after will be the expansion of trade with its neighboring countries, especially Oman.
On July 2021, Iran inaugurated an oil terminal in the Sea of Oman, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, in a strategic move to neutralize the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil shipments abroad.
Then president of Iran Hassan Rouhani called the oil terminal an “important step” for his sanctions-hit country and said it “will ensure the continuation of national oil exports.”
Rouhani said during the inauguration ceremony, “This shows that U.S. sanctions on Iran have failed.”
On 30 March, the CEO of Iran’s National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Mohsen Khojasteh Mehr, said that the Islamic Republic’s crude oil exports increased by 40 percent since the new administration came into office, despite a US campaign to seize Iranian oil tankers.
“We have exported more to some of the target countries than during the implementation of the JCPOA,” Khojasteh Mehr said, suggesting that US sanctions have done little to curb the success of Iran’s oil industry.
“Compared to the beginning of the new government, exports of gas condensate have increased two and a half times. In the field of crude oil, we have had an overall increase of more than 40 percent in exports,” he added.
Alongside harsh sanctions, the US has also led a campaign to seize Iranian oil tankers traveling through international waters in an attempt to prevent an increase in the country’s exports.
Despite this, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji said in an interview with Fars News Agency that Iran has sent “oil to places the Americans cannot even think of,” adding that, in total, “revenue from oil, gas condensate, petrochemical products, oil products, and gas exports have more than doubled.”