EU reaches no consensus on Iranian oil embargo

PanARMENIAN.Net - No consensus was reached on Iranian embargo issue, EU High representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton's spokesperson said.

"I am not aware of any reports on this respect," Maja Kocijancic said. According to Kocijancic, foreign ministers discussed further restrictive measures for Iran in the light of the new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week on Dec. 1.

"They decided that further work will be done in restrictive measures including energy sector with the view of the adoption of this package by the next meeting of foreign affairs council which will take place in January," she said.

The work on this has been launched, but "there was never any specific agreement on what kind of measures these will be," Kocijancic underscored.

Some countries have put forward the idea of oil embargo, but there is no final decision in this respect, she added. "The new measures are being looked at right now. No consensus was reached on Iran oil embargo issue."

Energy Commissioner Gunter Oettinger's spokesperson Marlene Holzner also refuted press reports on imposing embargo on Iranian oil imports.

"There is no consensus on the Iranian oil embargo," Holzner said, according to Trend News.

This week the foreign media referring to the European Union Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger published the information about the consensus within Europe that has been reached for the ban oil imports from Iran. Acoording to the reports, Oettinger said that the consensus has been reached, not specifying when the EU would implement a ban.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) as of January 2011, Iran has an estimated 137 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, 9.3 percent of the world's total reserves and over 12 percent of OPEC reserves.

In 2010, Iran exported approximately 2.2 million bbl/d of crude oil. Last year Iran's net oil export revenues amounted to approximately $73 billion. In January-June of 2011 Iran exported 450,000 b/d to Europe Union, 341,000 to Japan, 328,000 to India, 244,000 to South Korea, 182,000 to Turkey and 543,000 to China.

According to the analysts at the U.S. bank JP Morgan, even if the sanctions against Iran could also have a significant impact on global oil prices, they coincidently come at a time when spare capacity is rising alongside the ramp-up of Libyan and Iraqi supplies.