Saturday 20 / April / 2024
Dubai: Iran is offering to swap exports of crude oil for imports of refined fuel as some European customers struggle to find banks to process payments, a sign the Middle Eastern nation is still having difficulty regaining markets since the removal of sanctions.
The National Iranian Oil Co. is resorting to barter because financial restrictions still impede trade, said three officials who asked not to be named citing company policy. Hellenic Petroleum has struggled to secure deliveries because banks wouldn’t process payments, said two people familiar with the matter.
Iran is seeking to regain lost European markets and boost exports to Asia after sanctions were removed last month upon completion of an agreement limiting its nuclear programme. It loaded its first cargo of oil to Europe since 2012 this month onto a tanker chartered to French oil company Total. The country plans to increase exports by one million barrels a day this year, dismissing the possibility of joining an output freeze agreed by major producers including Saudi Arabia.
Cautious banks
Banks are being "super cautious because they do want to have access to the US markets and the US rules as to what they can do aren’t particularly clear," said Ross Denton, a partner at Baker & McKenzie specialising in sanctions. "Iran is open for trade" only for entities with no direct connection to the US, he said.
Several European banks approached by Hellenic refused to handle transactions linked to Iran, the two people said, asking not to be identified because the matter was private.
The Greek refiner, which got as much as a quarter of its crude from Iran before the European Union embargo, agreed last month to resume purchases immediately and start paying debt arrears. The company hopes to overcome regulatory and logistical hurdles and implement this agreement in the next few weeks, Chief Financial Officer Andreas Shiamishis said on a conference call on Thursday.
Hellenic owed NIOC $800 million for past deliveries of crude, Iran Oil Ministry’s news service Shana reported on January 25.
Barter deals
Barter deals avoid the need to access bank finance for as long as many lenders remain unwilling to issue letters of credit for Iran-linked trades, the three NIOC officials said. The company is asking for at least partial cash payment for most refined-product trades and accepting transactions in Euros and other currencies, they said. It is offering products such as fuel oil in exchange for imports of gasoline and is also willing to swap crude for fuel, they said.
Even after the successful nuclear deal, some US sanctions on Iran remain in place. In 2014, the nation’s regulators imposed fines on some European banks including BNP Paribas for processing transactions to nations under US sanctions like Iran, Cuba and Sudan.
It will be a couple of months before the National Iranian Tanker Co., which operates the world’s biggest fleet of supertankers, can offer its ships for charter on the international market again, commercial director Nasrollah Sardashti said on Thursday in an interview on sidelines of the Marine Money conference in Hamburg.
