Iranian Minister of Petroleum, Bijan Zangeneh, said Iran’s export of petrochemical products increased by 46% and stood at 18.7m metric tons in the previous Iranian calendar year which ended on March 19th, compared to two years ago, SHANA reported. Zangeneh said that production of petrochemicals by Iranian plants crossed 46mt/y during 2015, which exceeds production of the calendar year from March 2013 to March 2014 (1392) by 6.6mt/y.

Addressing the Iranian parliament, Zangeneh said, according to Fars News, that the Islamic Republic has no limits in petrochemical plants with natural gas as feed stock. He further noted that the current calendar year will be exceptional for the petrochemical industry through the operations of several petchem projects, saying: “Once these projects come on-stream, Iran will earn $5.7b from selling petrochemical projects at 1392 prices,” which will be a giant step for doubling the country’s petrochemical output.

In addition, as the country is regaining its market share at a fast pace, Iran’s oil exports to the European Union countries are on track to hit the highest in almost four and half year in June, as shipments to Europe recover to near pre-sanctions level, reported Daily Mail. Exports to Europe in June jumped from 530,000 b/d to about 580,000 b/d, which is nearly six times higher than the sanctions era exports. June loadings of crude and condensate stand at 2.31mb/d, up by about 100,000 b/d in May.

Additionally, Royal Dutch Shell resumed loading Iranian oil at the end of May, lifting about 1.1m barrels and becoming the second major oil firm after Total to buy from Tehran.

Iran has previously resisted a proposed plan to cap oil output, which was a condition put forward by Riyadh for agreeing to curb Saudi production in line with OPEC-non-OPEC freeze deal. Instead, both Tehran and Riyadh continue aggressively expanding their production. Saudi Arabia is seeking to sell large volumes of crude ahead of an IPO for its state firm.