Iran eyes oil for goods barter plan to fight sanctions

An Iranian lawmaker says the Islamic Republic is considering a plan to purchase goods only from countries that buy its oil.

MP Assadollah Qarehkhani was quoted by media as saying that a special committee had been formed in the Parliament that would deal with bartering oil with goods, adding that this was meant to help Iran overcome the impacts of upcoming US sanctions.

“The formation of this committee means that we will make purchases of goods conditional to purchases of Iran’s crude oil and this would limit the impacts of reductions in Iran’s oil exports [once the sanctions return],” added Qarehkhani who is the spokesman of the Energy Committee of the Iranian Parliament.

“We cannot transfer dollars and euroes [for oil sales] into Iran due to banking problems. Therefore, we will import goods from oil clients such as India, China and South Korea as we did during the previous round of sanctions.”

In May, US President Donald Trump announced that he would pull America out of a 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and re-impose the sanctions that the deal had envisaged to be lifted.

He has already emphasized that the sanctions which would be imposed on Iran would be “at the highest level”.

The sanctions would include a universal ban on Iran over buying or acquiring US dollars as well as restrictions over purchases of crude oil from the country and investing in its oil sector projects.

On a related front, a senior US State Department official was quoted as saying recently that the countries purchasing oil from Iran should prepare themselves to completely stop the Iranian crude imports by November as Washington reimposes sanctions against Tehran.

Iran currently exports around 2 million barrels per day of its oil from a total production of over three million barrels per day. Oil remains Iran’s lifeblood and supplies roughly 40 percent of the government’s revenue.