World Cannot Go without Iranian Oil: Minister
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Minister of Cooperative, Labor and Welfare Ali Rabiee shrugged off the US government’s recent attempts to remove Iranian oil exports from global market and said the world cannot go without Iran’s oil.
In remarks released on Saturday, Rabiee highlighted the significance of Iran’s oil exports and said the issue is important to the country.
“In any event, we sell our oil and the world cannot go without our oil,” he added.
“(Our) experience shows that various sanctions have failed to stop our oil sales and we will succeed in this area,” the minister said.
Earlier this week, an Iranian oil ministry official told Tasnim that US efforts to cut Iran oil exports will remain futile since removing the country's crude and condensate from global market is not an easy task in near future.
“This big claim (of cutting Iran oil supply) is not feasible because last month Iran exported 2.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day,” the informed official at Iran oil ministry said in response to a senior US State Department official who said the Donald Trump administration is ramping up pressure on allies to cut off funding to Iran.
Reuters had earlier reported that the United States has told countries to cut all imports of Iranian oil from November.
“Yes, we are asking them to go to zero,” the US official said when asked if the United States was pushing allies, including China and India, to cut oil imports to zero by November.
In reply, the Iranian oil ministry official said some European companies such as Shell and Total have stopped buying Iranian oil over the past few weeks but Iran is still exporting oil to Europe, Asia, and elsewhere in the world.
Asked about Iran’s reaction in case of the implementation of the US plan, the official said, “Iran is prepared for worst-case scenarios.”
He added, “The most pessimistic scenarios have been predicted in Iran's oil sale plans, and each scenario has an operational alternative....”
The Iranian oil ministry official also reacted to a possible operationalization of a US decision to fill gap in oil market, and said, “Unlike what US officials think, there is no surplus capacity for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others to supply oil for a long term.”
