The first shipment of Iranian crude oil has been sold on Iran's international oil bourse on the Persian Gulf island of Kish, an Iranian official says.

The Iranian oil bourse was officially inaugurated on July 14, 2011 on the Kish International Commodity Exchange, as a tool to strengthen Iran’s position in the international markets. Iran possesses the world’s second largest gas reserves and third largest oil reserves.

Mohammad Reza Khajenasiri, the chief supervisor of bourses and markets in Iran's Bourse Organization, said that a shipment of 500,000 barrels of heavy crude oil were offered at the Kish Commodity Exchange on Thursday and were traded at USD 105.49 per barrel, Mehr News Agency reported.

The crude consignment was traded 'without any discount or additional premium,' he stressed.

Following the inauguration of the bourse in mid-July, three shipments of crude oil were offered by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) at the center but could not be sold.

The NIOC plans to offer 50,000 barrels of Iran's crude on the bourse on a daily basis, once all the necessary preparations for the measure have been made.

Iran is the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC)'s second-largest oil producer.

The Iranian oil bourse is intended as an oil exchange for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various currencies other than the U.S. dollar, primarily the euro and Iranian rial and a basket of other major (non-U.S.) currencies.  

Western analysts said that at a time when the U.S. dollar is as vulnerable as it has ever been, Iran is piling on the pressure with their oil exchange. The thing that will kill the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency faster than the U.S. debt default is if oil producers and consumers trade oil in other currencies.

They said, if the main oil consuming and producing nations in the world unite to trade oil over an open exchange, similar to Iran’s oil bourse, and price the oil in currencies other than or as well as the U.S. dollar, then the world is likely to be economically more stable.