Continuing Iran's oil sales to Europe and solving barriers facing the receipt of oil money depend on the country’s negotiations with European states on its nuclear deal, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the rapporteur of Majlis Energy Commission said. “The United States aims to put economic pressure on Iran by reducing Iran’s oil sale revenues,” ISNA also quoted Asadollah Qarebaghi as saying on Friday on the effects of US President Donald Trump’s decision on May 8 on Iran, based on which the country wants to abandon JCPOA and reinstate sanctions that were in force before the international accord’s implementation more than two years ago.
Qarebaghi added that Americans may take measures such as buying companies and refineries to block the way of Iran’s oil to its customers.
“We can also grant special concessions to Iranian oil buyers like deferred payment and other conditions to act against the prospective sanctions,” the official said, stressing that the administration of President Hassan Rouhani has certainly devised such plans.
Qarebaghi noted that as the US and its regional ally Saudi Arabia will be able to cover the gap of Iran’s roughly 2.5 million barrels of oil sales, oil prices will not undergo a significant change.
The parliamentarian said Iran’s limitations in receiving its oil money hinge on the outcome of its negotiations with European countries and the currency with which it would make international transactions.
“An important point to know is that our situation is now better than that of the past, as we have experience in bypassing sanctions. The sanctions that the US wants to reinstate are without any global consensus and are not going to be implemented by the [UN] Security Council,” he said. Qarebaghi underlined that the US is also more aware of ways of getting sanctions around, which probably places more limitations on the country.
“Long gone are the days when it was possible to ignore a major oil producer like Iran in the market. Moreover, international crude markets are not in a state to eliminate a provider with more than 150 billion barrels of oil reserves,” Fereydoun Barkeshli, an Iranian energy analyst and president of Vienna Energy Research Group, told ILNA on Wednesday.
Saeid Khoshrou, director of international affairs at the National Iranian Oil Company, met with representatives of Chinese oil giant Sinopec and state-run oil trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corporation last week, seeking assurance from Chinese customers that they would continue to buy Iranian oil. Khoshrou had accompanied Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on the China trip, before the minister headed to Europe to discuss the Iran nuclear deal and the consequences of the US withdrawal with European Union leaders.
