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IEA: China buys more oil from Iran
Didier Houssin, IEA director of energy markets and security, said on Tuesday that Beijing is the world’s second-biggest crude consumer and may continue to increase oil imports from Iran.
“China has been buying more crude and may continue to do so,” he said at the International Petroleum Week conference.
Earlier this month, the IEA predicted that China’s purchases of Iranian crude would slow in the first three months of the year.
This comes while the IEA’s latest report predicts that China’s oil demand would Read more…
Iran, Russia naval presence in Syrian waters message to US: MP
Russian warships arrived at the Syrian port city of Tartus on Sunday, January 8.
Sun Feb 19, 2012 3:9PM GMT
“The United States should take Iran’s warning about [refraining from any possible] military intervention in Syria seriously.”
Hossein Ebrahimi Deputy head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee
A senior Iranian lawmaker says the presence of Iranian and Russian naval forces in Syria’s coastal waters is a clear warning to the US to refrain from any possible military adventurism.
“The United States should take Iran’s warning about [refraining from any possible] military intervention in Syria seriously,” Hossein Ebrahimi, deputy chairman of Iran Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Sunday.
He added that in the event of a US strategic mistake in Syria, Washington may receive a crushing response from Iran, Syria and a few other countries.
On Sunday, January 8, a large Russian navy flotilla led by an aircraft carrier arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus in the Mediterranean Sea for a six-day port call, to show Moscow’s solidarity with Damascus.
“The port call is aimed at bringing the two countries closer together and strengthening their
Iran cuts oil exports to France, Britain
The Huffington Post
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has halted oil shipments to Britain and France, the Oil Ministry said Sunday, in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union after the bloc imposed sanctions on Iran’s crucial fuel exports.
The EU imposed tough sanctions against Iran last month, which included a freeze of the country’s central bank assets and an oil embargo set to begin in July. Iran’s Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi had warned earlier this month that Tehran could cut off oil exports to “hostile” European nations. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 18 percent of Iran’s oil exports.
However, the Iranian action was not likely to have any significant direct impact on European supplies because both Britain and France had already moved last year to sharply curtail Read more…
Iran eyes talks after nuclear boasts
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends the unveiling ceremony of new nuclear projects in Tehran — Reuters
TEHRAN:Iran on Thursday expressed hopes of reviving moribund talks with world powers, a day after the Islamic republic unveiled what it described as major progress in its controversial nuclear programme.
“We have always welcomed the principle of negotiations and we believe that, with a positive approach and spirit of cooperation, there can be a step forward in these negotiations,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.
Iran on Wednesday sent a letter confirming its readiness to discuss resuming negotiations in response to an October 2011 offer in that sense made by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
The last round of talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group,UN Security Council permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, collapsed in Turkey in January 2011.
Iran’s tardy reply to Ashton appeared to be linked to the timing of its nuclear announcements also made on Wednesday, which collectively suggested the country had made strides in its atomic activities despite severe Western and UN sanctions.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wearing a white coat, oversaw what was described on state television as the insertion of Iran’s first domestically produced, 20-percent enriched fuel plate into Tehran’s research reactor.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday ordered Iran to “go build” four Full article here
Panetta: Iran could have nuclear weapons, delivery vehicles in 2-3 years
Iran could build and set off a nuclear weapon within two to three years if it decided to pursue one, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a television interview aired Sunday.
“The consensus is that, if they decided to do it, it would probably take them about a year to be able to produce a bomb and then possibly another one to two years in order to put it on a deliverable vehicle of some sort in order to deliver that weapon,” Panetta said during a profile on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
Tensions with Iran have mounted in recent months over Tehran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz and the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Iran has said its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
Panetta, who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency for two-and-a-half years before heading to the Pentagon, reiterated the Obama administration’s position that it would do everything it could to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. “If they proceed and we get intelligence that they’re proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, then we will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it,” he said. Asked if that meant a possible Read more…
Strategic Importance of Iran for Russia and China: Eurasian “Triple Alliance”
CONFRONTATION BETWEEN MILITARY BLOCS: The Eurasian “Triple Alliance”
Despite areas of difference and rivalries between Moscow and Tehran, ties between the two countries, based on common interests, have developed significantly.
Both Russia and Iran are both major energy exporters, they have deeply seated interests in the South Caucasus. They are both firmly opposed to NATO’s missile shield, with a view to preventing the U.S. and E.U. from controlling the energy corridors around the Caspian Sea Basin.
Moscow and Tehran’s bilateral ties are also part of a broader and overlapping alliance involving Armenia, Tajikistan, Belarus, Syria, and Venezuela. Yet, above all things, both republics are also two of Washington’s main geo-strategic targets.
The Eurasian Triple Alliance: The Strategic Importance of Iran for Russia and China
China, the Russian Federation, and Iran are widely considered to be allies and partners. Together the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, and the Islamic Republic of Iran form a strategic barrier directed against U.S. expansionism. The three countries form a “triple alliance,” which constitutes the core of a Read more…
Chinese supertankers hired for Iran oil
Clarkson Research Services Ltd., a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker, announced the two supertankers were booked to carry about 2 million barrels of crude from Iran’s Khark Island to China.
Qi Lian San, a large crude carrier anchored near Singapore, was booked to load 270,000 tons of crude at Khark Island from Feb. 3 to Feb. 5 and carry the cargo to China, Clarkson said.
The Chinese oil trader, Zhuhai Zhenrong Co., also booked an unidentified ship owned by the National Iranian Tanker Co. to load 265,000 tons of crude in Khark Island on Jan. 29 and sail to Read more…
India to pay gold instead of dollars for Iranian oil. Oil and gold markets stunned
India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar, debkafile’s intelligence and Iranian sources report exclusively. Those sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran’s total exports of 2.5 million bpd. Both are superpowers in terms of gold assets.
By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank’s assets and the oil embargo which the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed to impose Monday, Jan. 23. The EU currently buys around 20 percent of Iran’s oil exports.
The vast sums involved in these transactions are expected, furthermore, to boost the price of gold and depress the value of the dollar on world markets.
Iran’s second largest customer after China, India purchases around Read more…
Iranian trucks carrying missile materials intercepted en route to Syria
Four trucks with Iranian license plates were intercepted by Turkish authorities two weeks ago at the Öncüpınar Border Gate in Kilis province, which lies to the north of Syria, a country to which Turkey has been blocking the delivery of arms shipments since pro-democracy protests turned bloody in the Arab country.
Although the contents of the trucks were not publicized by customs officials, Taraf stated that on Friday it obtained reports confirming the trucks’ dangerous load. According to the daily, one of the trucks was carrying four six-meter-long cylindrical tanks and heat-resistant materials, while the other three were carrying 66 tons of sodium sulfate, all of which were on Read more…
Iran nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan killed by magnetic bomb in Tehran
Target: Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan who was killed in Tehran today when two motorcyclists attached a magnetic bomb attached to a carIran yesterday blamed the U.S. and Israel for the assassination of a university professor and scientist who played a key role in the country’s controversial nuclear weapons programme.
Two hitmen on a motorcycle were said to attached a magnetic bomb to the car of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan killing him and a passenger instantly as they sat in the Iranian-assembled Peugeot 405 in northern district of the capital Tehran.
A 32-year-old chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, Roshan was said to have been involved in Read more…
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