Iran oil trade booming despite sanctions

Iran's oil trade is unaffected by international banking pressure and the country is exporting just over 2.4 million barrels per day of crude, a senior Iranian oil official said yesterday.

US and UN sanctions over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme have targeted Iranian banks, while international banks have come under pressure not to deal with the world's fourth largest oil exporter and have scaled back or halted operations.

But Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, international affairs director at the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company, said, "We have no problems with transactions for exports of crude or imports of products."

Ghanimifard declined to comment on whether international companies involved in oil trade with Iran had experienced problems obtaining letters of credit from banks for transactions. Any problems with letters of credit could be sidestepped with alternative arrangements, he said.

"We could find other means aside from letters of credit, whatever buyers or sellers are happy with," he added.

Iran bought a second rare cargo of gas oil loading from Singapore yesterday. It typically buys gas oil from Abu Dhabi or India's largest refiner Reliance.

Asian traders said Reliance may have stopped product exports to Iran. Ghanimifard said he was unaware of any halt in shipments from Reliance.

However, Reliance quit selling gasoline and diesel to Iran last year after French banks BNP Paribas and Calyon stopped offering credit on the deals, four company and industry sources said.

BNP and Calyon, the investment bank arm of Credit Agricole, likely stopped offering Letters of Credit (LCs) - a standard form of payment guarantee in the oil trade - because of political pressure from Western nations that believe Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, a source said.

A top Iranian official denied any difficulty for Iran in securing the fuel it needs. "None of the banks which have something to do with the US were willing to open (LCs)... because of US pressure," said a Reliance source. Link