Tehran Complains as European Countries Stop Iran Oil Imports
Iranian Oil Minister: “No European country is buying oil from Iran except Turkey.”
In what can only be described as another diplomatic victory for President Donald Trump’s administration, European countries have stopped importing Iranian oil. The Iranian regime has admitted that European buyers have refused to touch Iranian oil despite temporary waivers extended to them by the United States.
“No European country is buying oil from Iran except Turkey,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said.
The Iranian minister specifically criticized Greece and Italy, complaining that they even refuse to answer Iran’s queries with regards to future oil imports. Athens and Rome have received six-month waivers from U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil imports. These waivers, scheduled to expire in May, are meant to give energy importers more time to find alternative suppliers. “Iran’s oil customers should not expect new waivers to U.S. sanctions in May”, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, said Thursday.
The Radio Free Europe reported the Iranian oil minister’s statement:
Iran has criticized Greece and Italy for not buying its oil despite U.S. waivers, and said they had not offered Tehran any explanation.
“No European country is buying oil from Iran except Turkey,” the semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh as saying on February 5.
Zanganeh added that Greece and Italy “don’t buy Iranian oil and they don’t answer our questions.”
“We have called them many times, but they do not return our calls,” the minister also said, according to the Fars news agency.
The United States granted the two EU member states and six other countries – Turkey, China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – temporary waivers to import Iranian oil when the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran’s energy sector in November.”
Despite rebukes from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders, and stiff opposition from Democrats at home, Trump pulled out from the Obama-era nuclear deal last May. In November 2018, Washington introduced stiffer economic sanctions on Iran’s oil, shipping, and banking sectors, hampering the government’s ability to build up its nuclear arsenal and finance terrorism across the Middle East.
Trump’s strategy of isolating and weakening the Iranian regime has been very effective so far. The termination of the nuclear deal ended the financial windfall for Iran, which triggered the biggest economic crisis since the Islamic regime grabbed power in 1979. This has fueled a wave of anti-regime protests across the country, including in the capital of Tehran.
“My administration has acted decisively to confront the world’s leading state sponsor of terror: the radical regime in Iran,” President Trump said in his recent State of the Union address. “To ensure this corrupt dictatorship never acquires nuclear weapons, I withdrew the United States from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. And last fall, we put in place the toughest sanctions ever imposed on a country.”
The news comes as the European Union is busy unveiling a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), a non-dollar trading mechanism, to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Chaired by a German banker, the trading mechanism seeks to buy Iranian oil in exchange for European goods, thereby shielding European companies from violating U.S. secondary sanctions and leaving behind no money trail.
While Germany’s Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron continue to vow to “uphold” President Obama’s legacy on Iran, German and French companies have all but left the country. With European investors on their way out and the EU countries refusing to buy Iranian oil, the SPV is teetering on the edge of collapse before it can even get off the ground. With Brussels devising shady schemes to bankroll the faltering regime, it is heartening to see EU member states refusing to touch Iranian oil shipments even with a barge pole.
[Cover image via YouTube]
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“The news comes as the European Union is busy unveiling a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), a non-dollar trading mechanism, to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Chaired by a German banker”
The EU is experiencing an economic slowdown themselves as Trump threatens tariffs and capital is returning to the United States. Why the EU wants to tie their wagon to Iran only to find themselves the beneficiaries of similar sanctions seems really shortsighted.
I still think we have many scores to settle with Iran, and that we should make a downpayment on settling those scores by destroying all forty + water reservoirs and hydro electric dams.
Drop fliers offering a bounty for clerics detached heads.
“Why the EU wants to tie their wagon to Iran only to find themselves the beneficiaries of similar sanctions seems really shortsighted.”
Kind of like tying their wagon to an unending flow of military aged males who are adherents to a cult that wants to kill them.
“No European country is buying oil from Iran except Turkey,”
Proving yet again that Erdogan’s dictatorial regime is no friend of the US.
Meanwhile Germany continues to rush head long in to energy dependence on Russian gas. The rest of the EU will naturally follow in short order.
Also…hardest hit…the radical left democrat liberal supporters of Iran.
No is the time to start marketing USA natural gas to Europe. Build an offshore terminal or two and signup European buyers for our gas. Convince the Europeans that they need a reliable source of gas.
Russian gas is delivered by pipeline, is it economical to compete against that?
I remembered an article from a few years ago about Baltic nations wanting to be free from Russian energy.
The first-ever delivery of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Lithuania on August 21, 2017 marks a significant turning point for both Vilnius’ and the greater Baltic region’s energy markets, where the Russian state company Gazprom has historically been the dominant gas supplier. It also reflects the new geopolitics of natural gas for Europe and especially for the United States, which only began exporting LNG worldwide in 2016. In an e-mail statement to me, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė wrote, “U.S. gas imports to Lithuania and other European countries is a game changer in the European gas market. This is an opportunity for Europe to end its addiction to Russian gas and ensure a secure, competitive and diversified supply.”
The LNG cargo arrived in Lithuania’s Klaipėda port from the Sabine Pass terminal in Texas, operated by Cheniere Energy, the leading U.S. LNG exporter. In 2016, the company launched its inaugural exports to Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. In Europe, however, the deliveries were largely confined to Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom—until this June, when Poland received its first U.S. LNG shipment.
Poland’s efforts to reduce its energy dependence on a single supplier continued in 2018, with natural gas imports from Russia slipping more than 6% from 2017 levels as liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Qatar, Norway and the United States jumped by nearly 60%, state-owned oil and gas company Polskie Gornictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo S.A. (PGNiG) said Wednesday.
LNG imports from Qatar, Norway and the United States in 2018 rose by nearly 1 billion cubic meters (Bcm), or 35.3 Bcf, to more than 2.71 Bcm (95.7 Bcf), which compares to the roughly 1.72 Bcm (60.7 Bcf) that was imported from those countries in 2017, the company said. Meanwhile, PGNiG imports from the East slid to 9.04 Bcm (318 Bcf), down from 9.66 Bcm (320 Bcf.)
Thanks Tiki, that is interesting. Also useful to reduce Russian revenue to support the treaty issue.
Now not no.
For 4 decades Iran has treated the US as an enemy.Why should the Mullahs be surprised when the US treats Iran as an enemy? Apparently the Mullahs believe that turnabout is not fair play.
“Why should the Mullahs be surprised when the US treats Iran as an enemy?…”
They’re surprised believing American traitor ‘barack hussein obama’ and equally traitorous puppetmaster valerie jarrett, are of power.
Think about how much more they would be surprised when flooding from dam failures was followed by water & power shortages. Then they can make tough choices about running those centrifuges.
Crippling Iran would send a clear message to others. They have been begging for such since their revolution.
Oil being used as a weapon against Iran this is karma. European countries buying LNG from Russia, a country they are supposedly scarred to death will invade and take over their countries is ludicrous. Why would anyone do business with the person that will take the profits and build weapons to kill you. Buy from your allies, weaken your adversaries and maybe your life will get better.
Two large oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana will further reduce the murdering muslims choke hold on oil. We don’t need to buy oil from the largest hate group on the planet – muslims. muslims use their 7th century warfare ideology called islam to rape, enslave, and murder all non- muslims:
Two large oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana will further reduce the murdering muslims choke hold on oil. We don’t need to buy oil from the largest hate group on the planet – muslims. muslims use their 7th century warfare ideology called islam to rape, enslave, and murder all non- muslims: