 |
Louisiana Light • 2 days | 87.56 | +0.00 | +0.00% | ||
|
Bonny Light • 2 days | 88.85 | -1.30 | -1.44% | ||
|
Opec Basket • 2 days | 88.72 | +0.00 | +0.00% | ||
|
Mars US • 179 days | 77.26 | -1.51 | -1.92% | ||
|
Gasoline • 40 mins | 2.705 | -0.044 | -1.58% |
|
Bonny Light • 2 days | 88.85 | -1.30 | -1.44% | ||
|
Girassol • 2 days | 89.64 | -1.21 | -1.33% | ||
|
Opec Basket • 2 days | 88.72 | +0.00 | +0.00% |
|
Peace Sour • 13 hours | 75.83 | -1.22 | -1.58% | ||
|
Light Sour Blend • 13 hours | 78.88 | -1.22 | -1.52% | ||
|
Syncrude Sweet Premium • 13 hours | 85.83 | -1.22 | -1.40% | ||
|
Central Alberta • 13 hours | 76.23 | -1.22 | -1.58% |
|
Eagle Ford • 2 days | 79.11 | +0.00 | +0.00% | ||
|
Oklahoma Sweet • 2 days | 79.00 | +0.00 | +0.00% | ||
|
Kansas Common • 2 days | 73.00 | -1.00 | -1.35% | ||
|
Buena Vista • 5 days | 88.82 | +0.60 | +0.68% |
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Europe Braces For End Of Iran Nuclear Deal
Europe is scrambling to come up with a contingency plan in the face of a U.S. threat to end the nuclear deal with Iran—a move that lends a high level of uncertainty to European megadeals, including French Total SA’s $5-billion oil deal with Tehran.
At stake if Trump refuses to certify Tehran’s compliance with the nuclear accord on 15 October and sanctions are re-imposed are deals with European companies worth over $55 billion in total, according to figures from the Financial Times.
If Trump refuses certification on 15 October, Congress would then have 60 days to make a decision on new sanctions, giving Europe two months tome come up with a contingency plan.
Right now, there isn’t one.
“People in Brussels are looking at whether blocking statutes need to be upgraded or updated,” David O’Sullivan, EU ambassador to the US, told the Financial Times on Thursday. “There’s no definitive plan yet. But if the US were to do something which impinged on the ability of Europeans to do what we could consider legitimate business with Iran, this is something we would like to look at.”
Earlier in October, the French oil giant shrugged off the US sanctions threat, with Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne telling media, “We knew when we signed that it will not be an easy road. But I prefer to have a problem to solve and to have the opportunity rather than having not signed [and] no opportunities.”
Total signed its deal with Iran in July, making recent history. This was the first deal Iran signed with a foreign energy company since sanctions were lifted in January 2016.
Related: Goldman: Expect Oil Stocks To Catch Up With Rising Oil Prices
The $4.8-billion deal is to develop Iran’s prolific South Pars natural gas field—the largest gas field in the world, shared with Qatar. Total would lead the consortium.
Iran was the European Union’s top trading partner before sanctions were slapped on Tehran in 2010. Since sanctions were lifted, trade has still been hampered due to some U.S. financial sanctions that make Western banking institutions still wary of doing business with Iran.
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Europe’s options are limited as it seeks a contingency plan. According to analysts interviewed by the Financial Times, one option could be an effort to block legislation related to a new imposition of sanctions by the US, but this would be a complicated “by the international reach of U.S. laws on financial transactions”.
Trump is expected to have a decision on the nuclear deal as early as Friday.
By Damir Kaletovic for Oilprice.com
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Damir Kaletovic
Damir Kaletovic is an award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker and expert on Southeastern Europe whose work appears on behalf of Oilprice.com and several other news…
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The “Iran Libya sanctions Act” or ILSA, proposed by the Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato of New York was in effect. The legislation imposed trade sanctions on foreign companies that assisted Iran and Libya in their efforts to develop oil and gas projects. It also called for a mandatory ban on U.S. government purchases from companies dealing with Iran, denying export licenses to their subsidiaries, and refusing entry to their executives.
The European partners of the consortium requested DG-iv of the European Commision for help, which was eventually obtained: a waiver of the sanctions was agreed in exchange for leniency in the negotiations in an ongoing WTO-case. The project never came to fruition, though because shortly after submission of a project proposal the project was aborted due
to differences of opinion between Iran and Pakistan .