(VOVworld) - Iran is preparing to restart crude-oil exports to the European Union possibly as early as February despite a host of barriers to selling its petroleum to the West.

A file picture of an oil tanker anchored at Iran’s Assaluyeh seaport in the Persian Gulf. (Photo: Reuters)

Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Oil Company is tentatively preparing a shipment of at least 1 million barrels of light crude to a Mediterranean port in the EU around mid-February.

It would be the first shipment to the EU since an embargo on Iranian oil was lifted last week as part of the end of western sanctions.

With sanctions lifted over the weekend, Iran has pledged 500,000 barrels a day of new crude exports in the next few months and 1 million barrels a day within a year.

Iran’s return to the market has sent oil prices into a tailspin because the world is already well supplied with oil, with production outstripping demand by a million barrels or more on a given day. Oil inventories are nearing capacity around the world. The market rout has forced Iran to consider bartering its oil in exchange for goods as the country tries to avoid selling its resources on the cheap.