Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on October 13, 2012
Iran denies steep plunge in oil exports
Iran’s oil exports have remained steady in recent months, Iran’s OPEC governor said on Saturday, denying a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that Iran is struggling to arrest a decline in its oil sales.
In a report on Friday, the IEA estimated Iran’s exports falling to a new low of 860,000 barrels per day (bpd) in September, a huge plunge from 2.2 million bpd at the end of 2011.
The drop in Iranian supply is supporting oil prices and hurting Tehran’s revenues, deepening hardship for a population deprived of basic imports and adding to pressure on the government over its nuclear programme.
But Mohammad Ali Khatibi, Iran’s OPEC governor, said the IEA’s data was faulty and ran counter to data provided to OPEC by Iran.
“Iran’s oil exports are the same as previous months and the situation is stable,” Khatibi was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday.
Khatibi also denied that the only buyers of Iranian oil were China, India, South Korea, Japan, and Turkey.
“The market for Iranian oil is beyond the mentioned countries…We are always exploring new markets but we don’t publicise them much because it may be detrimental,” Khatibi said without elaborating.
The United States and its allies are pressing Tehran to give up its disputed nuclear programme by choking off oil revenues, which provide the vast majority of Iran’s hard currency earnings. Iran says the programme is for peaceful purposes.
The European Union banned Iranian crude from July 1 and other countries have cut purchases in response to tighter U.S. sanctions. The EU ban prevents EU insurance firms from covering Iran’s exports, hindering imports by some non-EU buyers.
On Friday, the European Union provisionally approved new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, with senior diplomats giving their backing to measures against Tehran’s banking sector and industry.
2 Comments on "Iran denies steep plunge in oil exports"
Plantagenet on Sun, 14th Oct 2012 12:06 am
Is the IEA lying or is Iran lying?
BillT on Sun, 14th Oct 2012 1:17 am
The IEA are nothing but liars, not that the OPEC countries are much better. But, from other sources, it appears that Iran is more correct here. Yes, exports of oil has dropped, but not anywhere near what the Western MSM is putting out. But then, they too have their shit piles called news. I would gauge the oil sales of Iran by the news of oil shortages in China or India or Japan. They are Iran’s major oil customers. The West has no idea how much oil is being sold because it is not being paid for with Us dollars. THAT is the real problem for the Us. It is being bartered for or paid for with gold, rupees, yuan, etc.