November 12, The Iran Project - In an attempt to sell oil to the Iranian private sector, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has started large scale offering of crude oil with a million barrels at�the Iran Energy Exchange (IRENEX).

On the Sunday (Nov. 12) session of the market, a total of 700,000 barrels of crude oil was traded at the IRENEX.

Offered by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the cargoes were priced at $64.97/b.

Offering crude oil started at the weekend on a large scale on IRENEX with 0.7 million barrels of light crude oil. The minimum volume of purchase was 35,000 barrels.

In the previous round of offers, NIOC sold 280,000 barrels at the local energy exchange on October 28.

Speaking to Shana, Saeid Khoshroo, director of international affairs at NIOC, said the company would continue selling oil at IRENEX given its successful experience in the market.

Khoshroo went on to say that NIOC was considering extension of the deadline for settlement of the purchases to 60 days.

The official stated that "NIOC has eased the purchasing process in the energy exchange to ensure that no cargoes could be purchased more easily outside of the market.�

In order to develop alternative channels for monetizing Iran�s oil, Iranian authorities have activated an old plan to market some of their export potential through the IRENEX.

The IRENEX was established in 2012 as a regulated exchange for trading of energy-related products and securities.

Up until last week, IRENEX had mainly been an exchange for the trading of petroleum and petrochemical products (not crude oil), gas liquids and electricity.

On Monday (Nov. 5) US secondary sanctions targeting Iran�s oil, banking and transportation sectors went into effect.

The threat of sanctions had already reduced the actual volume of exports in the past months to an extent that Iran�s crude oil and gas liquids exports had fallen from their peak of 2.7 million barrels per day (mbpd) in May to some 2.2 mbpd in October.

But� the United States has retreated from its original goal of reducing Iran�s oil exports to zero by granting waivers to eight countries� � China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Turkey, South Korea and Taiwan � to purchase oil from Iran.