Iran to unload 40m barrels once nuclear deal is signed

London

IRAN is storing as much as 40 million barrels of oil on supertankers at sea as it prepares for a sales drive if a nuclear deal can be sealed. Iran and six world powers are seeking to overcome remaining differences with a looming self-imposed June 30 deadline to reach a deal over Teheran's disputed nuclear programme.

In the meantime, Iran has been parking oil off its coast, mainly on tankers belonging to its national carrier NITC. "The first thing they will try and do is offload quite a lot of that storage. (Oil Minister Bijan) Zanganeh has already warned Opec: make room for us. In other words, we are going to sell this oil at any price," said Mehdi Varzi, a former official at the state-run National Iranian Oil Co.