http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=13127
Iran to sell oil in every currency
3/17/2007 8:00:00 AM GMT
After threatening to sell oil in Euros instead of U.S. Dollars, Iran,
ranked the fourth among the world oil producing countries, decided to sell oil
in all currencies, in a historic move expected to clam Western pressure led by
the United States, which fears a Euro-based Iranian oil sales, to rid Iran of
its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to pursue peaceful
nuclear technology.
"Our oil sales will be in every currency," Dow Jones quoted Iran's Oil
Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh as saying on the sidelines of an OPEC meeting in
Vienna last Thursday.
"We need oil currencies," Vaziri added.
The announcement came following media reports regarding meetings between
Iranian officials and Japanese refiner during which the two sides allegedly
discussed having oil payments in euro or yens and not in U.S. Dollars.
Economic experts suggest the new move to be nothing but a new tactic
adopted by the Islamic Republic to allay Western pressure to impose economic
sanctions against it, after two years of continuous war of words between
Washington and the Iranian government escalated in recent months raising fears
of a possible military confrontation between the two countries.
Oil has been the main industry in Iran since the 1920s.
But in recent years it announced challenging the dollar hegemony by
launching a euro-based oil bourse.
. "Prices drop"
Yesterday, oil prices slipped, with light, sweet crude for April delivery
falling 44 cents to settle at $57.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile
Exchange, The Associated Press reported.
"This is a market hitting the skids going into the April contract's
expiration on Tuesday," said Tim Evans, energy analyst at Citigroup Global
Markets. "All the speculative activity is in May and June. That's why you see a
larger drop in the April contract than in May," Evans said.
Also Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover in New Canaan, Conn., has been
quoted as saying that the sharp decline in the stock market on Friday
undermined prices. "The market has seen strong demand, but traders are starting
to look ahead to the possibility that demand could be eaten into by a
slowdown," he said.
Friday's decline in oil prices comes after prediction by the
International Energy Agency last Tuesday about the biggest first-quarter
decline in crude oil inventories in industrialized countries in 10 years.
Earlier OPEC, or the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries,
decided not to change its output targets, as was previously predicted.
In a Thursday meeting of the organisation in Vienna, OPEC members agreed
to maintain the oil cartel's crude production at existing levels.
"The market is stable, the market is healthy," said OPEC Secretary
General Abdallah Salem El-Badri of Libya. "We don't need to touch it this time."
-- AJP and agencies
