BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 24. Iran did not earn enough from crude oil exports, as was originally estimated, in the current Iranian year (March 21, 2023 through March 19, 2024), said Davoud Manzoor, the head of Iran’s Plan and Budget Organization, Trend reports.
Manzoor said that the Iranian state budget expected oil revenues of 6.2 quadrillion rials (about $148 billion) for this year. But in the first seven months (March 21 through October 22), the revenues fell short because crude oil was not exported in sufficient amount, both value and volume wise.
Iran usually does not reveal the value and volume of its exports crude oil because of the sanctions.
Iran had planned to export 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day at $80 per barrel in this year’s state budget. However, Iran faced many challenges in exporting crude oil, such Western sanctions, selling Iranian crude oil at a low price on the “gray market”, and being excluded from SWIFT, the global banking system. These factors reduced the country’s income from crude oil exports.
Manzoor added that Iran only received 8.5 quadrillion rials (about $202 billion) of the expected 12.1 quadrillion rials (about $289 billion) in state budget revenues in seven months. This created a budget deficit of 3.65 quadrillion rials (about $86.9 billion).
The chairman also said that Iran would take some steps to reduce the budget deficit. One of them is selling government bonds worth 1.87 quadrillion rials (about $44.5 billion).
The state budget of Iran for this year projected total revenues of 20.8 quadrillion rials (about $496 billion).
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