President Mohammad Khatami on Thursday inaugurated the first phase of an oil swap project with Iran's Caspian neighbours which Tehran hopes will undercut a rival pipeline scheme backed by arch-foe Washington.
Under the CROS project inaugurated in the Caspian port of Neka, Iran will take crude from Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and pump it to its refineries in the cities of Tehran and Tabriz.
In return, Iran will sell its own oil from Gulf ports on behalf of the Caspian producers.
CROS already has a capacity to handle 170,000 barrels per day (bpd), which will climb to a peak capacity of 500,000 bpd. No exact timeframe was given for reaching full capacity.
The CROS project is Tehran's response to Washington's opposition to construction of a major pipeline to carry crude from the Caucasus to the Gulf through Iran.