Since January, Tehran has sold 11 million barrels to France's Total, 2 million barrels to Spain's Cepsa and 1 million to Russia's Litasco, Reuters reported quoting Iranian officials, traders and ship-tracking data.
European countries accounted for more than a third of Iran's exports, or 800,000 barrels a day, before the European Union imposed sanctions in 2012 over its nuclear program.
Before 2012, Iran exported around 2 million bpd of oil, most of it to Asian countries, which informally agreed to limit their collective purchases to around 1.2 million bpd once EU sanctions came into effect. Washington has had sanctions on Iranian oil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran which ousted the US-protege regime of Shah.
Iran, OPEC's third largest producer, has raised exports by 900,000 barrels per day to 2.2 million bpd in the past two months and hopes to overcome most of the financial, legal and logistical obstacles it has faced in the wake of withdrawal of sanctions.
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