MNA � The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has announced the fifth round of oil sale on Iran Energy Exchange (IRENEX) will be launched on February 18.

According to a notice published on Wednesday, the fifth round of crude sale will be conducted with terms and conditions similar to that of the previous round.

NIOC will offer one million barrels of light crude in 35,000-barrel cargos. Customers are required to buy a minimum of one cargo. Other conditions will be the same as the previous round.

On October 28, the first round of selling a million barrels of crude oil on IRENEX began by NIOC and 280,000 barrels, divided in 35,000-barrel consignments, were sold at $74.85/b.

On November 20, the company offered 700,000 barrels on the market which were sold at $64.97/b.

The third round (January 21) and the fourth round (February 4) ended without any trade, although these two rounds underwent some procedural change to meet the purchasing conditions for buyers.

They involved settling payments entirely in rials as well as foreign currencies. This is while buyers in the first and second rounds had to pay 20% of the price in rials and pay the rest in foreign currencies, namely US dollar, euro and the UAE dirham.

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