Tag: Iran

Iran vows ‘expected and unexpected’ moves if U.S. exits deal

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday Iran’s atomic agency was ready with “expected and unexpected” reactions if the United States pulls out of a multinational nuclear deal, as U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to do.

“Our Atomic Energy Organization is fully prepared … for actions that they expect and actions they do not expect,” Rouhani said without elaborating in a speech carried by state television, referring to a possible decision by Trump to leave the accord next month.

The deal reached between Iran, the United States and five other world powers put curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump has called the agreement one of the worst deals ever negotiated. In January he sent an ultimatum to Britain, France and Germany, saying they must agree to fix what the United States sees as the deal’s flaws or he would refuse to extend the critical U.S. sanctions relief that it entails.

U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said on Thursday Washington had been having “intense” discussions with European allies ahead of the May 12 deadline, when U.S. sanctions against Iran will resume unless Trump issues new waivers to suspend them.

Iran has said it will stick to the accord as long as the other parties respect it, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.

“Iran has several options if the United States leaves the nuclear deal. Tehran’s reaction to America’s withdrawal of the deal will be unpleasant,” Iranian state TV quoted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as saying in New York.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROLS “PREVENTIVE” IN CASE U.S. EXITS

Rouhani said his government intended to prevent instability in the foreign exchange market after a possible Washington exit from the nuclear accord when the central bank this month slapped controls on markets in an attempt to unify the Iranian rial.

“This was a preventative blow against any American decision on May 12. They fully hoped to … cause chaos in the (foreign exchange) market. I promise to the people that the plot of the enemy has been thwarted, and whether or not the nuclear deal remains in effect, we will have no problem,” Rouhani said.

On April 9, Iran moved to formally unify the country’s official and open market exchange rates and banned money changing outside of banks, after its currency, the rial, plunged to an all-time low on concerns over a return of crippling sanctions.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Iran oil imports fell 15.7% in fiscal year 2017/2018

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India’s oil imports from Iran during the 2017/18 fiscal year fell by 15.7% from a year ago as state refiners reduced purchases after a row over development rights for an Iranian natural gas field, according to data from shipping and industry sources.

India, the world’s third-biggest oil importer, shipped in a record 4.46 million barrels per day (bpd) oil in the fiscal year that ended in March to feed its expanded refining capacity.

During the period, Indian refiners received about 458,000 bpd of oil from Iran, compared to about 543,500 bpd during the prior year period, the data showed.

Indian state refiners, including Indian Oil Corp, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corp and Bharat Petroleum Corp, along with it subsidiary Bharat Oman Refineries Ltd, lifted about 27% less oil from Iran, the data showed.

Last year India, Iran’s top oil client after China, had instructed state refiners to cut Iranian oil imports after Tehran decided to give development rights of Farzad B gas field to other companies .

However, the countries have now resumed negotiations on the Farzad field. Iran hopes major differences between the two nations on the field will be resolved in two months, Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh said earlier this month.

In the current fiscal year, state refiners have drawn up plans to double Iranian oil imports to take advantage of freight discounts.

Iran hopes to sell 500,000 bpd of oil to India during the fiscal year 2018/19, Zangeneh said in February. An Indian source, however, said, the imports from Iran could rise to 600,000 bpd.

In the last fiscal year, private refiner Reliance Industries boosted imports from Iran by about 50% to about 81,000 bpd, the data showed.

Essar Oil’s imports from Iran fell by 18% to 145,000 bpd in the last fiscal year, as the company, under new management led by Russian oil major Rosneft, has diversified its purchases.

HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd, which operates the Bathinda refinery in northern Punjab state, marginally reduced its Iran oil purchases to about 16,000 bpd in 2017/18, the data showed.

In March, India’s oil imports from Iran were 430,000 bpd, down 34.4% from the previous month and 18.2% from a year ago, the data from the sources showed.

The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak with media.

In the last fiscal year, Iraq emerged as the top oil supplier to India replacing Saudi Arabia. Iran was the third-largest, while Nigeria replaced Venezuela as the fourth-biggest supplier.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Iran switches from dollar to euro for official reporting currency

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Iran will start reporting foreign currency amounts in euros rather than US dollars, state media said on Wednesday as part of the country’s effort to reduce its reliance on the US currency due to political tension with Washington.

The new policy could encourage government bodies and firms linked to the state to increase their use of the euro at the expense of the dollar.

Central bank governor Valiollah Seif said last week that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the “dollar has no place in our transactions today”.

Tehran has been trying for years to move away from the dollar, although much of the country’s international trade is still conducted in dollars and ordinary Iranians use them for travel and savings.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to exit a 2015 nuclear deal Iran made with world powers unless it is revised. US sanctions will resume unless Trump issues new “waivers” to suspend them on May 12.

Bank transactions involving the dollar are already difficult for Iran because legal risks make US banks unwilling to do business with Tehran. Foreign firms can be exposed to sanctions if they do Iranian deals in dollars, even if the operations involve non-US branches.

As a result, France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods later this year to keep its trade out of reach of US sanctions, the head of state-owned French investment bank Bpifrance said in February.

The threat of US sanctions has destabilised Iran’s foreign exchange market in recent months.

The rial lost close to half its value on the free market between last September and last week, sinking to a record low of about 60,000 against the dollar before authorities set a fixed rate of 42,000 and warned Iranians they would face penalties for using other rates.

Khamenei on Wednesday blamed foreign enemies for the “recent issues in the currency market” and asked Iran’s intelligence services to defuse the plots against the Islamic Republic.

Police spokesman Saeed Montazer al-Mahdi was also quoted by ISNA saying that 39 currency exchangers have been arrested “for disrupting the market” and 80 unlicensed currency exchange shops have been shut down in recent days.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

$60 is a good price for crude oil, says Iran’s oil minister

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said on Wednesday that $60 a barrel is a good price for oil currently as the market should avoid volatility.

“I believe in this situation around 60 (dollars per barrel) is a good price,” said Zangeneh, who was attending the International Energy Forum.

“I think we should look at the market not for short-term, long-term, mid-term is important for us,” he said. “It is very important for producers and consumers not to have volatility in the market.”

When asked if global benchmark Brent oil trading at $70 a barrel were too high, Zangeneh answered, “Yes.”

Zangeneh added that he hopes India and Iran can finalise the main issue on the development of the Farzad B natural gas field in the next two months.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India-Iran-Russia resume talks on activating key trade corridor

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India, Iran and Russia have resumed talks on activating the International North South Transport Corridor which will cut freight time to Europe by half and bring down the cost for the benefit of east and southeast Asian exporters.

India, Iran and Russia are leading in activating the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) route since 2000, through existing road-route and with the development of some railway gaps in between the 7,200-km long multi-mode network of ship, rail and road.

The INSTC was discussed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to India in February while Russia maintains a strong interest in the trade route, said Ambassador P S Raghavan, Convener of National Security Advisory Board in the Indian government.

“It is not only to make Indian-Russian trade or Indian-European trade profitable, actually it will make it very lucrative for east Asia and southeast Asia exporters. There is nothing to stop the INSTC from being activated in a matter of months,” said Raghavan.

He said that capacity building can be carried out as trade volume increases and progress is made on related issues.

The potential is enormous and well known, Raghavan said.

With no trade sanctions against Iran, the INSTC becomes “very competitive”, he said.

Raghavan said the INSTC cuts transportation time and cost by half as compared to the Suez Canal route.

The current shipment through Suez Canal route involves a longer distance, and is expensive as well as congested.

The INSTC could transport exports from India’s west coast, through Iran’s Bandar Abbas and Chabahar ports, Central Asian states, Russia and onwards to Europe.

Indian-Iranian-Russian customs have discussed trans-shipment processes while logistics such as containerisation needs to be sorted out, Raghavan said after addressing the 12th Institute of South Asian Studies International Conference on South Asia.

The conference was organised by the Institute of South Asian Studies, a think tank of the National University of Singapore.

It needs a special purpose vehicle of multi-national capacity to manage the transportation network from end-to-end, he said.

In 2014, the Federation of Freight Forwarders Association of India had a dry run on the INSTC.

The INSTC member states recognise the potential for efficient and seamless North-South transport caused by economic globalisation and by ever-increasing trade within the Eurasia region, the forwarders had said in a report at that time.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

India to offer $3-4 billion development plan for giant Iran gas field

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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India is set to offer a $3-4 billion development plan for the Farzad B gas field to Iran next week after Tehran reduced the scope of the project, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Relations between the two countries, which have long held deep trade ties, were strained last year after Iran sought other investors for the field and media reports suggested Tehran would award it to Russia`s Gazprom.
In retaliation, India directed its state refiners to cut oil imports from Iran.
At a meeting in New Delhi in February, Iran reduced the scope of the development plan for the Farzad B field and asked India to submit a revised proposal, said the two sources, who did not wish to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.
New Delhi and Tehran have been trying to narrow differences over Farzad B development rights since its discovery by Indian firms led by ONGC Videsh, the foreign investment arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, in 2008.
Indian companies were hoping to get rights to develop the asset as the South Asian nation was one of the handful of nations that continued to deal with Iran during years of sanctions against the country over its nuclear programme.
The new terms confine Indian companies to just production of gas and development of the field, said the two sources.
Although a formal offer is yet to be made, sources said, the new bid would be between $3 billion and $4 billion and would not include gas processing and development of downstream projects.
“As the negotiations are still ongoing, we would not like to comment at this stage,” ONGC Videsh said in response to a Reuters` email seeking comments.
At the request of Iran, Indian companies last year submitted a $11-billion development proposal that covered the development of upstream activities and downstream infrastructure.
The field is estimated to hold 22 trillion cubic feet (tcf)of reserves, of which 16 tcf are deemed recoverable.
India and Iran will discuss the revised development plan for the field next week, during Iranian oil minister Bijan Zanganeh`s visit to New Delhi.
To strengthen its ties with India, Iran has offered a higher freight discount on oil sales, besides agreeing to consider India`s demand for a stake in a producing field, sources told Reuters last month.
In return, India has agreed to boost oil imports from Iran, India`s oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan said last month after a meeting with Zanganeh in Delhi.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Iran may shut down Telegram app for security reasons

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Iran will block Telegram app services for national security reasons, an Iranian news site Mashreghnews.ir  reported.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, Head of the Parliamentary Committee, said that the decision was made “at the highest level” and the app would be replaced by a similar local system, the site reported on Saturday.

Boroujerdi, as quoted by the news site, said the decision was a response to what he called Telegram’s destructive role in anti-government protests that began in late December in which at least 25 people were killed and nearly 5,000 reportedly arrested.

The instant messaging app, with over 40 million users in Iran, was temporarily shut down during the protests in early January. However, some 10% of users reached it through proxies and VPN services.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow