Iran to find ways for guaranteeing oil exports – officials

Tabnak – After the United States failed to realize its dream of cutting Iranian oil exports down to zero by November 4, it’s continuing to pressures Iran’s costumers to do as much as it can in this regard. Iranian officials, however, say that the country will find ways to preserve its status in the energy market and US pressures will lead to nowhere.

In this vein, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani denounced recent sanctions imposed by Washington against Tehran as ineffective and said despite the US attempts to cut the Iranian crude exports down to zero, the Islamic Republic can sell its oil.

Today, the whole world has realized that the Americans once again made false claims and unfounded propaganda, President Rouhani said, addressing a cabinet session in Tehran on Wednesday.

“They thought they would completely cut off Iran’s oil (exports)… but finally, they realized that this was not practical or possible,” he added.

“Above all, the Americans realized that we would sell our oil,” Rouhani said, adding that no matter what they do, there are many options for Iran to sell its oil and their sanctions are ineffective.

At the same time, Iranian ambassador to the UK says the US has failed to rally the world community behind its new sanctions against Iran, and that the Islamic Republic possesses “enough leverage” to keep its oil sales going despite US attempts to reduce them to “zero.”

In the face of American sanctions, “we have lots of alternatives because we have had some experiences from the past,” Hamid Baeidinejad told the CNN’s Christian Amanpour in an interview published on the network’s website on Wednesday.

“We know that, in fact, the difference, this time, is that countries are not ready to comply with the United States’ request. So, we have enough leverage to continue our exports,” he added. The envoy said the US intention of bringing Iranian exports to a halt has been “unsuccessful.”

Meanwhile and in a related development, it’s reported that Iraq has rejected a US deadline to stop importing Iranian gas, warning that any halt to the supplies would create a real power crisis which sparked several days of unrest in Basra and elsewhere this summer.

“Stopping Iranian gas after the deadline will create a real power crisis. We need more time … the Americans are completely aware of how desperately we need Iranian gas,” an Iraqi official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The announcement came after the US embassy in Iraq said on Thursday that Washington had given Baghdad 45 days to stop purchasing gas and electricity from Iran.

The second batch of US sanctions, which were supposed to shut down Iranian oil exports, went into effect on November 4. However, they failed to do so after Washington, over the fear of a supply crunch in global markets, granted eight countries temporary exemptions to allow them to buy from Tehran without any punishment.

Companies and governments were given six months to wind down their energy-related trade when sanctions were announced in May following President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.