MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The announcement comes a day after the Islamic Republic hammered out a final deal with the major world powers to scale down its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, including gas and oil trade embargoes, and restrictions on financial transactions.
"Oil sales contracts have been signed for 2015," the ministry tweeted in Persian.
The ministry’s petroleum energy information network SHANA cited Seyed Mohsen Ghamsari, the head of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), saying that Iran’s traditional customers – China, India, South Korea, Turkey and Japan – have increased oil purchases.
Ghamsari hopes that the removal of UN and Western sanctions under Tuesday’s nuclear deal will increase its oil sales on the global market, SHANA said.
The deal, finalized on Tuesday, wrapped up two years of negotiations to guarantee the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear program. Under the agreement, sanctions against Tehran are to be phased out over the next few years.
