Iran admits sanctions hurting oil industry

Iran admitted on Tuesday that international sanctions imposed over its controversial nuclear programme were harming its ability to invest in oil infrastructure.

“The problems that they have made for banks have troubled financing of some projects,” Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh told the official IRNA news agency.
He said that the government was attempting to use its own resources, built up from the windfall receipts of recent years of high world oil prices, to make up for the shortfalls in foreign investment.

“The government makes a decision in this respect using internal resources and the Oil Stabilization Fund,” into which the government invests oil income that exceed the needs of normal state expenditures, the minister said.

Hamaneh’s admission contrasted with comments by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday in which he insisted that Iran was unfazed by the prospect of further sanctions.

Africasia