Tehran, April 12, IRNA – One of the most significant achievements made by the government of President Hassan Rouhani in the previous Iranian year (ended March 20, 2017) was breathing a new life into Iran’s oil industry.

The implementation of the nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers provided Iran’s oil industry to remedy the country’s clogged economic artery and regain its position in the global petroleum market.

Actors in the Iranian oil industry, after the implementation of the nuclear deal, known also as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), soon put high on their agenda reaching two primary goals, namely, boosting oil production and attracting former Iranian oil customers that had stopped buying Iranian oil as a result of the Western-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

To the surprise of global oil market analysts, the Iranian oil industry managed to refurbish itself over a short period of less than one year after the removal of the international sanctions.

Market analysts and foreign institutions had anticipated that within one year after the implementation of the JCPOA, and given the most optimistic speculations, Iran oil industry is expected to increase production by only 700,000 barrels a day.

But contrary to their assessments, from the implementation day of the JCPOA on January 20, 2016 till the same month next year, oil production in Iran saw a rise of more than one million barrels a day over a period of one year, and not three years, as predicted.

Now, with a production of nearly four million barrels a day, the Islamic Republic of Iran has retained its former status as a major oil producer in the global oil market and once again, the oil industry has turned to be the propelling force for Iran’s economy.

A two-digit growth in the country’s oil industry during the previous year (more than 11 percent) led also to an overall economic growth of more than six percent in Iran.

Under the sanctions, many Iranian oil customers in Asia, including Japan, India and South Korea under pressure from the United States start cutting down their imports of the commodity from Iran. It was the same with Iran’s customers across Europe. Some European countries even stopped importing oil from the Islamic Republic as a result of sanctions and Washington’s pressures.

Now, however, Iran is exporting 700,000 barrels of oil daily to Europe and, compared to the previous year, there is a 58 percent rise in the amount of oil imported by major buyers of the Iranian oil in Asia.

Iran’s return to the global oil market, reestablishing business ties with the world countries and providing resources needed to give momentum to the country’s economic pace, are some of the results of the approach assumed by the government of President Rouhani.

They are direct results of a constructive engagement with the global community.