Tuesday this week, European Union officials imposed new sanctions against main Iranian companies in the oil and gas industry, and tightened restrictions on Iran's Central bank (CBI) on the pretext of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.
The major entities targeted by recent the EU sanctions are the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), one of the largest exporters of crude oil throughout the world, as well as the National Iranian Tanker Company.
However, the European officials are making efforts to relief Statoil ASA which participated in the development plans of phases 6 to 8 of Iran's South Pars and imported several thousand tons of LPG from Iran. Statoil ASA (formerly StatoilHydro) was founded by the 2007 merger of Statoil with the oil and gas division of Norsk Hydro.
All actions imposed by the European countries are taken to halt enriching uranium by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The West powers, above them the United States claim Iran's nuclear program is meant for producing atomic weapons.
But Tehran has categorically rejected such allegation stressing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has focused its nuclear activity on civilian purposes including medical research and electricity production.
Earlier this week, The Iranian Oil Ministry downplayed the recent threat by the European Union (EU) to ban Iran’s natural gas export.
The EU threat is a “propaganda campaign,” Oil Ministry spokesman Alireza Nikzad Rahbar said in response to EU diplomats’ recent remarks that the EU is mulling over imposing a ban on exports of Iranian gas, MNA reported.
Right now, no EU member imports Iranian gas,” Nikzad Rahbar said, “The new EU threat is just propaganda maneuvering and will never be enacted since they (the EU members) can never make themselves politically dependent on other countries.”
Nikzad-Rahbar added that sanctions would only deprive Europe of Iran’s abundant gas reserves and make Europe more dependent on other sources of energy, which would threaten the continent’s energy security.
Furthermore, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast formerly said that the new sanctions imposed by the European Union will not force Iran back into negotiations over its nuclear program, on the opposite, "illogical" and "inhumane" sanctions would only make Iran more determined in its stance.
Iran has already held the world’s second-largest gas reserves, with 29.6 trillion cubic meters, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy which includes 16 percent of the world's gas reserves. Russia has the biggest reserves of the fuel.
Iran is now exporting gas to Turkey and has swap deals with Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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