Oil May Hit $80 Before 2017 – Iranian Minister

Iran hopes its oil exports will return to the pre-sanctions level of 2.5 million barrels a day within the next three months once a deal with major powers to lift an oil embargo is finalized, the country’s deputy oil minister said on Monday.

"We hope we can come back to the export levels that we had before the sanctions," Roqneddin Javadi, who is also the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company, told Reuters.

Javadi said he expected the oil price to rise to around $80 a barrel by the end of 2016, adding that Asia could take more than 50 percent of Iran's exports.

Roqneddin Javadi said the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was unlikely to implement a production cut at its next meeting in June.

When asked whether OPEC would cut output at the upcoming June 5 meeting, he said he did not think so.

On April 2 the P5+1 group of international mediators and Iran clinched a deal on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program.

In keeping with the political agreement, the Islamic Republic agreed to have its uranium enrichment program curtailed and its uranium stockpiles taken out of the country.

In exchange for Tehran’s pledge to make its nuclear program entirely peaceful, the world powers agreed for a gradual lifting of the sanctions previously imposed on the country.

The sanctions have more than halved Iranian oil exports since 2012 to about 1 million bpd, mainly to Asia.