Iran’s minister of oil says that Saudi Arabia and Emirates are exaggerating about their capacity to fill the void of Iran in the international oil market.

After the United States announced its decision to completely stop Iranian oil exports, several countries announced their readiness to fill the void of Iran’s oil in the international oil market. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq pledged to increase their oil production in order to prevent an imbalance of offer and demand in the market.

On Wednesday, the energy minister of Saudi Arabia said that his country does not deem necessary to increase production immediately after the U.S decision. However, he stated that if the customers demand more oil from Saudi Arabia, the country will meet their demands.

On Thursday, the Saudi minister of energy announced that China (one of Iran’s main customers) has not demanded more oil from Saudi Arabia.

According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia’s oil export in April has been estimated close to 7 million barrels a day. The Saudi officials have said that the country produces 9.8 million barrels a day and it can increase it up to 10.3 million barrels.

Before the United States’ decision to leave the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal), the Islamic Republic was exporting over 2.5 million barrels a day. But since the sanctions in Autumn of last year, Iran’s export has been reduced to almost one million barrels a day.

After the new round of U.S sanctions of Iranian oil last year, the leader of Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described the U.S sanctions as futile and said: “We will export as much as we want.”