Shana news agency – 27 December 2015 – Iran’s Oil Ministry said in a report that the country had sold heavy crude at $29.4 per barrel.
The price had been registered in the week ending 18 December.
The report added that Iran had also sold its light crude at $35.1 per barrel over the same period.
Both figures show major drops from normal levels of the previous months. The average price of Iran’s heavy oil stood at $48.6 since March, added Shana. The average price of the light oil stood at $50.6.
Iran last saw record low prices in 1998 when its oil was traded in markets at below $10 per barrel.
Officials in Tehran had earlier said they expected the prices to plunge below $30 per barrel.
“Oil producing countries will suffer serious blows under the current conditions and with [further] plunges in prices of this product (oil),” said Iran’s First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri on 19 December.
For a country that has devised its budget based on $100 for each barrel it expects to sell, it will be hard to change the calculations to $30 per barrel, Jahangiri added.
Nevertheless, the country’s Finance Minister Ali Tayyeb-Niya later emphasized that Iran had provided the required preparations to deal with the economic impacts of oil prices even as low as $30 per barrel.
Tayyeb-Niya said a large part of those preparations focuses on the implementation of a comprehensive national taxation program which is already on the agenda of the government.