* Iran has not been able to benefit from lifting of insurance ban * Short-term agreement makes oil sale conditions unclear The only advantage to Iran of the agreement to extend the interim nuclear agreement with the West by four months is that it will prevent the country's oil exports falling by as much as 20%, a senior oil official said Friday.
Mohsen Ghamsari, international affairs director at the National Iranian Oil Company, said Tehran had benefited little from the so-called Joint Plan of Action agreed with six world powers in November 2013, implemented for six-months on January 20 and extended last Friday until November 24.
"The only positive point about the recent negotiations was that Iran was spared a 20% fall in its oil sales," Ghamsari said, quoted by oil ministry news service Shana. He appeared to be referring to the US' agreement to "pause" its pressure on countries buying Iranian oil to make further reductions in their purchase volumes.
The interim deal, or JPOA, gives Iran some relief from the swingeing sanctions that have slashed Tehran's oil exports, the country's main source of income, in exchange for concessions on the nuclear issue. As part of the deal, the EU agreed to lift its ban on the provision of insurance for shipments of Iranian oil.
But Ghamsari said Iran had not been able to benefit from the lifting of the insurance ban because of the short-term nature of the agreement.
"Short-term agreements have a no war-no peace nature. Such agreements make conditions for Iran's oil sales unclear because issues like shipping, banking and insurance are long-term matters and companies active in these sectors usually don't have any desire to change their activities in the short term," he said.
"Nothing particular has happened in this regard," he added, referring to the lifting of the insurance ban.
"In the past six months, no company agreed to provide insurance for Iranian oil tankers, and it seems unlikely that in this new four-month agreement anything will happens either. In fact, these negotiations have had no quantitative impact."
However, Ghamsari said the removal of pressure on Iran's customers to make further cuts in their imports of Iranian oil was positive in that it was "possible to negotiate with oil buyers away from tension."
Six countries -- China, India, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Taiwan -- have continued to buy Iranian oil under a waiver from US financial sanctions in effect since mid-2012 by reducing their import volumes.
Iran had been exporting some 2.2-2.3 million b/d of crude before the US and EU sanctions came into effect in late June and the beginning of July two years ago. Last year, according to International Energy Agency estimates, imports of Iranian crude by the six buying countries averaged just 1.1 million b/d. But in recent months, combined import volumes have been rising.
In February, for example, the import total for the six averaged 1.47 million b/d, according to official figures and, in the case of India, shipping data analyzed by Platts. The volume eased back to 1.26 million b/d in March, edged up to 1.29 million b/d in April and climbed to 1.46 million b/d in May.
Japan, Turkey and Taiwan (Taiwan's imports of Iranian oil are negligible) have yet to release data for June, making it difficult to come up with an estimate for average imports by the six over the first half of this year.
However, the data for China, India and South Korea shows that these three countries alone imported an average 1.05 million b/d over the January-June period, similar to their 1.09 million b/d average for the first five months of the year. Including Japan and Turkey, imports of Iranian crude over the January-May period averaged around 1.37 million b/d.
These higher numbers are due mainly to an increase in shipments to China and India, the two biggest importers of Iranian crude.
The data shows combined imports by China and India averaging 1.11 million b/d in May, the highest monthly volume this year, although the combined volume for the two slid in June to 718,735 b/d.
Over the first six months of 2014, China and India together imported an average of 929,161 b/d. Over the same six months of 2013, they imported an average of 658,487 b/d.
According to the IEA and other analysts, the higher volumes of Iranian crude imported by China coincide with an apparent increase in the country's strategic stockpiles.
The extension of the interim agreement, meanwhile, means that negotiators now have until November 24 to reach a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear issue that would lead to the removal of sanctions and the free flow of Iranian oil onto world markets.
The West suspects Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran rejects, saying its nuclear program is aimed solely at electricity generation.
