Iran might cut oil exports by over 30 percent
Roughly 20 members of Iranian Parliament (Majlis) have proposed
a bill obliging Tehran to temporarily reduce its oil exports to the
countries that observe sanctions against Iran by 33 percent, Fars
news agency reported.
Supposedly, the bill will be discussed next week.
MP Masoud Mir Kazemi and the head of parliament's energy committee
supported the bill, saying "we are able to use oil as a response to
the sanctions."
Finance Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said on October 31 that Iran
will revise its economic relations with the EU in future.
Iran will shift in future its economic focus from the European
countries to other customers, Mehr news agency quoted Hosseini as
saying.
The new round of EU sanctions will not be effective and the only
party that will suffer from these sanctions is the EU itself, the
head of Iran's parliamentary budget commission, Gholamreza Mesbahi
Moghaddam, said on October 21.
"EU has decided to impose sanctions on Iran, while some European
countries still import Iranian gas. It shows that the only party
that is going to suffer from these sanctions is the EU," he
added.
The Iranian Oil Ministry had previously said that the recent threat
posed by the EU to ban gas imports from Iran is mere 'propaganda
campaign' as Iran exports no gas to the European bloc.
"Right now Iran has no gas exports to the EU and the threat of
sanctions [against Iran 's gas] is mere propaganda campaign," Press
TV channel quoted Alireza Nikzad Rahbar, a spokesman for the
ministry on October 6.
He said that possible sanctions against Iran's gas would be mostly
to the detriment of European countries as they would deprive
themselves of Iran 's vast gas reserves and thus would have to
increase their reliance on other sources of energy.
"We consider the EU threat as mere propaganda campaign because the
increase in EU's dependence on limited sources of gas will put at
risk the energy security of this continent," he added.
Deputy Foreign Minister Seyyed Abbas Araqchi had also said on
October 8 that Iran will never have difficulty selling its crude
oil.
Iran is selling oil continuously and so far has managed to receive
the revenues without any great difficulty, Fars agency quoted
Araqchi as saying.
"Iran is gradually shifting its economic focus from Europe to
Asia," he said.
"Oil is a valuable, high-demand global commodity, therefore Iranian
oil would not remain unsold. If some countries reduce their
purchase, we have other customers willing to increase their
imports," Araqchi said.