Iran still waits for $7.8 billion oil revenues
By Sara Rajabova
Iranian official has said the country hasn’t received part of its revenues from the sale of crude oil.
Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, Iran’s government spokesman said Iran has not received yet $7.8 billion in revenues from the sale of oil in recent months other without explanation.
Nobakht said oil revenues in the past 12 months had totaled $52.8 billion at the official rate of the U.S. dollar.
Iran’s oil customers are mainly China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey but U.S. and European sanctions are preventing international banks from transferring money to Tehran.
Those clients have cleared some of Iran’s oil dues under a payment mechanism agreed between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries as part of a temporary nuclear deal.
Iran’s crude oil exports should remain in the range of 1 million to 1.1 million barrels per day under that arrangement. The revenues are deposited in an escrow account which Iran may use to buy goods.
Under the terms of the temporary nuclear agreement reached between Iran and world powers, Islamic country has received several billion dollars of frozen oil revenues in installments.
In last November, the country received the 5th part worth $500 million, which was frozen in South Korea was transferred to Iranian Central Bank's account in Oman, meanwhile an amount of $400 million, blocked in India was transferred to the bank’s account in the UAE as 6th part of the payments.
The latest payments brought the total paid amount of the second phase to $ 2.8 billion.
The first phase enabled the release of $ 4.2 billion of the country’s assets.
The U.S. and EU imposed sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors at the beginning of 2012 due to claims of potential deviation toward non-civilian purposes in Iran's nuclear energy program. Iran has repeatedly denied the Western allegations against its nuclear energy program.
The sanctions are aimed to prevent other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. At the end of 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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