Face au retour des sanctions américaines, l'Iran étudie la
relance d'un plan d'échange de pétrole brut contre marchandises, reprenant ainsi
le schéma qu'il a utilisé pour atténuer l'impact du précédent cycle de
sanctions entre 2012 et 2016.
Durant cette période de sanctions contre l’Iran, Téhéran
recourait au troc et payait les importations de nourriture en ’or ou du pétrole
brut.
À l'époque, les sanctions avaient entraîné une flambée des
prix des produits alimentaires. Bien que la vente de produits alimentaires fût
autorisée, les difficultés de transactions bancaires créait de sérieux
problèmes... L'efficacité de l'arme de la sanction est passablement
émoussée, et ne mènera à rien.
Et tout cela, rien que pour plaire à quelques dirigeants
politiques ou industriels fanatiques et fous furieux, dont on peut clairement, dénoncer
leurs actions comme crimes contre la paix et de crimes contre l’humanité. Ce
qui, en se basant sur les principes énoncés dans le Procès de Nuremberg, les
rends passible de poursuites judiciaires…
Le fait que toutes ces canailles restent en liberté et
puissent agir impunément nous démontre clairement l’hypocrisie de l’Occident et
son jeu de deux poids et deux mesures.
Iran Looks To Barter Oil As U.S. Sanctions Bite
Faced with
the return of U.S. sanctions, Iran is studying a revival of a plan to barter
crude oil for goods, possibly resuming the scheme that it used to try to blunt
the impact of the previous round of sanctions between 2012 and 2016.
Unable to
bring in U.S. dollars and euros ahead of the new U.S. sanctions that kick in in
early November, Iran is open to accepting agricultural products and medical
equipment in exchange for its crude oil, Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA)
quoted the spokesman of the Parliament’s energy committee, Asadollah
Gharekhani, as saying.
According
to Gharekhani, Iran will only trade with countries that buy its oil.
Considering
that the U.S. is pushing for “zero” Iranian oil exports and is pressing other
countries to stop importing Iran’s oil, Tehran may not have many countries left
to trade with.
“We have
informed our oil customers that we will only buy their commodities if they buy
our crude,” Gharekhani said.
In the
previous sanctions on Iran between 2012 and early 2016, when Europe also
imposed sanctions alongside the U.S. to punish Iran for its nuclear program,
Tehran resorted to barter and was offering gold bullions
in vaults overseas or crude oil in exchange for food. Back then, the sanctions
severely limited Iran’s ability to pay for imports of basic goods, which led to
a spike in food prices. Those sanctions were not banning companies from selling
food to Iran, but the transactions with banks were very difficult.
This time
around, the U.S. sanctions and the tough U.S. approach to try to cut off as
many Iranian oil barrels as possible have spooked banks, insurers, and
shippers, who have started to wind down business with Iran for fear of coming
under secondary sanctions.
In June,
Iran’s crude oil exports stood at 2.280 million bpd, and condensate exports were
330,000 bpd, Iran’s oil ministry news service Shana reported earlier this week.
Those levels are lower than the record-high in April and the
still-high exports in May—the month in which U.S. President Donald Trump
withdrew from the nuclear deal and announced fresh sanctions on Iran.
Just after
President Trump’s announcement, oil prices jumped, and analysts started to
guesstimate how much Iranian oil barrels could be taken off the market by the
end of this year. Few thought it would be 1 million bpd or more.
But the
tough U.S. stance on Iranian oil exports over the past two weeks has had even
India—Iran’s second-largest oil customer after China—preparing for a drastic reduction of oil imports from Iran, as
its companies and the sovereign are reportedly worried that they would lose
access to the U.S. banking system if they continue to import Iranian oil.
According
to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, oil prices will hit $90 a barrel by the second quarter
of 2019, as Iranian oil barrels are removed from the market and other supply
disruption risks threaten the tightening oil market.
Morgan
Stanley thinks that oil prices will jump to $85 a barrel as early as the
second half of this year, because of the U.S. push to remove as much Iranian
oil from the market as possible. Morgan Stanley expects that Brent Crude will average $85 a barrel over the next
six months—$7.50 higher than its previous estimate. Early on Thursday, Brent
Crude was down 0.5 percent at $77.77.
Before
lifting its oil price forecast this week, Morgan Stanley had expected that Iran
would lose 700,000 bpd in oil exports through 2019 from the sanctions. But the
tougher U.S. approach now makes the bank’s analysts think that Iran’s exports
to Europe, Japan, and South Korea—a total of 1 million bpd—would “fall to
minimal levels.”
“Over the
course of last week, downside risk to future Iranian oil supply has increased
rapidly,” Martijn Rats, global oil strategist and head of the bank’s European
oil and gas equity research, told CNBC.
By Tsvetana
Paraskova for Oilprice.com
The
original source of this article is OilPrice.com