TEHRAN, AUG 18 (DNA)- Iran has prepared itself for transfer of 500,000 barrels of oil from the Caspian Sea countries per day in the form of swap deals, a senior Iranian official announced.

“A 272-kilometer long pipeline has been constructed in the northern Iran to transfer crude oil from Neka Terminal on the Caspian Sea coast to a refinery in Tehran,” Head of the North Department at Iranian Oil Pipeline and Telecommunication Company Hamid Hosseini said.

He pointed to the record of swapping deals between Iran and the Caspian Sea states, and said that the Iranian and Kazakh presidents 21 years ago suggested cooperating in the field and after six years, the proposal became operational.

“615 kilometers of oil pipeline is in the Northern provinces of Golestan and Mazandaran that are assigned to transfer the oil and the petroleum products in swap plans to refineries in Tehrarn and Tabriz,” Hosseini added.

He went on to say that an average of 81.67 and 181 million liters of oil products are received, respectively by Golestan and Mazandaran Provinces via the pipelines that has decreased the oil tankers traffic by 8,760 tankers of 30,000 liters.

In oil swap deals, the imported crude oil from the Caspian Sea countries is discharged in Neka Terminal and then it is transferred to Tehran via the 32-inch pipeline. Refineries of Tehran and Tabriz are consumers of the swapped imported oil.

Iran delivers the same amount of crude oil it receives from its northern neighboring countries via the Kharq Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf.