Azerbaijan, Baku, May 14/Trend, D.Khatinoglu/
The statistics published late last week by both IEA and OPEC indicates a significant drop in Iran's oil output and export volume, as the Western sanctions over Iranian oil sector and banking system are going to take affect in two months.
Some Iranian major oil customers such as the Europe Union, South Korea, Japan and Turkey announced that they have decreased Iranian oil purchase, the fact that is proved in IEA stats, saying 15% to 25% of Iran's oil output wasn't sold and had to be pumped into floating tanker storage.
Trend Expert Councils member Reza Taghizade told Trend that Iran can store about 30 million barrels of oil in its tankers, but no more because of a lack of further storage capacity. Then Iran has to shut down some oil fields.
The Wall Street Journal quoted David Fyfe, head of the IEA's oil markets division warning about Iran's coercion to shut down some oil fields in case of all Iranian tanker storage capacity be used.
An anonymous Iranian official told WSJ that the amount of oil kept by the country in ships doubled to 24 million barrels between March and late April.
Taghizadeh says that shutting down the oil fields in Iran is very dangerous, because most of Iranian oil fields are in their second half-life. Their shutting down will lead to decreasing the pressure and damage the productivity of wells.
"The old ones may become inactive and reactivation of them is impossible," he said.
According OPEC monthly statistics published last week, Iran's oil output has decreased from 3,563 mbpd in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 3,196 mbpd in April 2012.
IEA also released its latest statistics a day after OPEC said that Iranian oil export has dropped and may decrease by 1 mbpd in the second quarter of current year.
The U.S. new round sanctions on Iran's Central Bank will take force in June 28 and EU sanctions on Iranian oil purchase, rendering insurance services and also imposing embargo on Iranian Central Bank will become effective in July 01.