MNA reported that Iran's oil revenues during the Iranian calendar year of 1390 which ended on March 19th 2012 amounted to USD 118 billion. And the Islamic Republic's oil revenues during the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-June 20) amounted to USD 19.8 billion.

Exports of natural gas and oil products stood at USD 1.1 billion during the 3 month period showing a 101% rise compared to the figure for the corresponding period in the previous year.

MP Gholamreza Mesbahi Moqaddam who is the chairman of the Iranian parliament's Economic Committee has put the current volume of oil sales at around 1.03 million barrels per day but said that the current target is 2.5 million barrels per day.

Recently, Mr Mohammad Ali Khatibi Iran's OPEC governor said that the country's oil exports have remained steady in recent months. "Iran's oil exports are the same as in previous months and the situation is stable."

Mr Khatibi said that the West has been pressuring Iran to halt the uranium enrichment component of its nuclear program, claiming that the program could be diverted to nuclear weapons production. But Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus has the right to enrich uranium to produce fuel.

And the International Atomic Energy Agency has conducted numerous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence showing that Iran's civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.

At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.