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Iran says shifts more oil sales to Asia from West

LONDON: Iran has shifted the focus of its crude oil exports toward Asian customers and away from the West since the start of India's large Reliance refinery, H. Ghanimi Fard, vice president of marketing for the National Iranian Oil Company, said on Thursday.

"We used to export about 20 percent to Africa and the Americas, and both 40 percent to Europe and the East. We now export 48-49 percent to the East and almost all the rest to Europe and Africa and very little to the Americas," he told reporters.

Iran has an OPEC output allocation of 3.36 million bpd though recent independent estimates have put it nearer 3.5 million. Exports are about two million.

Ghanimi Fard said Iranian sales to South African now were running at 120-150,000 bpd. He said Iran's domestic consumption was 1.4 million bpd.

Ghanimi Fard said that Iran's output capacity remained at four million bpd.

He was speaking in London on the sidelines of an industry conference. -Reuters