Iran says its oil exports are down by 20 percent but asserts it is still producing the same amount of crude, and finding markets for it as gasoline and other products, despite international sanctions.
Iranian oil minister Rostam Ghasemi spoke today as he and other OPEC ministers went into a meeting expected to keep the 12-nation cartel's output target at 30 million barrels a day.
The US-led embargo on oil and other punitive measures were imposed in an attempt to force Iran to curb its nuclear program. Production is now an estimated 2.5 million barrels a day, about 1.5 million barrels less than before the sanctions.
But Ghasemi told reporters that "production has not changed." He said that Iran, which used to import gasoline, now exports it.
