From RT.com
Iran may turn the sanctions tables by immediately stopping oil supply to Europe. The move is aimed as a response to the EU slapping an embargo on new oil contracts with Tehran. China has lashed out at the sanctions, calling them “blind pressure”.
The European sanctions, which follow a similar move by the US, provide for a grace period lasting until July 1, during which standing contracts with the Islamic Republic may be honored. However Iranian MPs are drafting a new law, which would stop short all supply to Europeans as soon as possible, according to Nasser Soudani, a member of the parliament’s energy committee.
“A number of representatives of the Majlis [Iranian parliament – RT] and I are seeking to approve a plan according to which all European countries that made Iran the target of their sanctions will not be able to buy even one drop of oil from Iran, and oil taps will be turned off to them so that they will not play with fire again,” Soudani told the Fars News Agency on Wednesday.
The legislation may be voted on in the parliament as early as this Sunday. If imposed, such a ban would result in a fuel shortage in Europe, as the countries, which joined the sanctions while receiving a considerable amount of crude from Iran, would not have enough time to secure a substitute.
Countries like Italy and Greece refine oil from Iran at plants tailored to a particular blend of crude, and readjusting them to another sort of oil would be costly both in terms of time and money. Soudani says the sanctions may eventually force buyers to acquire Iranian oil through intermediaries, and the cost of the fuel would be inflated by both rising market prices, and middlemen’s fees.
“European firms have no alternative but to enter into contracts with us, since abandoning Iran’s oil would mean the extinguishing of the candles of their economic lives,” the Iranian MP predicted......read more
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