Iran doesn't expect oil customers to get sanctions waivers
Iran said it doesn’t believe buyers of its oil will get waivers from the U.S. government that would allow them to continue purchasing cargoes after President Donald Trump’s renewal of sanctions.
“I don’t believe they can receive waiver from the United States,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said Friday in a Bloomberg television interview. “We are going to find some other way."
Most customers are still buying Iran’s crude, “but some of them have difficulty because of the pressure from the United States on bank transfers, transport insurance and so on,” Zanganeh said. Oil majors Total SA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are among those companies that have already stopped their purchases, he said.
“We are trying to find new customers,” Zanganeh said.
There are many ways for Iran to try to preserve output and the ministry has prepared for a “worst scenario,” Zanganeh said in Vienna after attending a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
“I can not describe these other ways,” Zanganeh said. “If the United States administration knows what we are going to do, they will block us.” Iranian oil exports are close to 2.5 million barrels a day this month, he said.