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 Iran has ready alternatives to a threatened European Union embargo on its oil and increased pressure from Washington, and intends to keep up exports of some 2.3 million barrels per day this year, a senior Iranian oil official told Reuters.European Union governments have discussed on a plan to ban imports of Iranian crude to the European Union but have not yet to reached to an agreement on such an embargo. The discussions, news of which sent crude oil prices higher, followed talks in the last days of December between EU envoys, diplomats said. Objections to the idea, notably from Greece and Italy have stopped the talks. Some European Union member states are concerned about the economic impact of an embargo at a time when Europe is struggling with massive debt problems. Tensions between the West and Iran – the second biggest producer in OPEC – have already pushed up oil prices. Iran supplies a total of around 450,000 barrels per day to EU member states, making the bloc collectively the second largest market for Iranian oil after China. Tehran had already considered different routes if that were to happen, Mohsen Qamsari, International Director of the National Iranian Oil Co., said. “We could very easily replace those customers,” said Qamsari. Some, but not all, of any displaced volume could move into China as well as other Asian countries and Africa, he said. Iran was unlikely just to store crude on tankers as that was only a short-term solution. He said he expected shipments would remain unchanged this year. “We’ve got very high demand from our lifters, so we have the same quantity [just above 2.3 million bpd] in our term contracts,” Qamsari said. Roughly 30 percent, or just under 700,000 bpd, of Iran’s oil steams west of Suez, he said. More than half that volume is shipped to Europe, roughly 200,000 bpd moves into Turkey and the remainder is routed into Africa. (Source: Reuters)   Socialize this Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay in touch and receive all of TT updates right in your feed reader
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