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Page added on December 1, 2013
US extends Iran oil sanctions waivers to China, India, South Korea
The U.S. State Department extended six-month Iran sanctions waivers on Friday to China, India, South Korea and other countries in exchange for their reducing purchases of Iranian crude oil earlier this year.
The waivers had been expected. Under a law governing sanctions imposed on Iran’s disputed nuclear program by the United States, the State Department is required to determine whether the Islamic Republic’s oil consumers have reduced their purchases.
The decision comes even after the United States and five other global powers, known as the P5+1, agreed in Geneva this month to ease Iran’s access to about $4.2 billion in foreign currency reserves for six months in exchange for Tehran’s taking steps to curb its nuclear program.
The waivers, which the State Department calls exceptions, mean that banks in the consuming countries will not face being cut off from the U.S. financial system for the next six months.
“We will continue to aggressively enforce our sanctions over the next six months, as we work to determine whether there is a comprehensive solution that gives us confidence that the Iranian nuclear program is for exclusively peaceful purposes,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.
Since the beginning of the sanctions regime in 2012, all 20 of Iran’s oil customers have qualified for the periodic waivers. But despite the Geneva agreement, the United States reserves the right to sanction any oil consuming country should it suddenly increase its purchases.
Officials from the Departments of State, Treasury and Commerce have worked with Iran’s buyers since 2012 in an effort to find alternative sources of crude, including oil from Saudi Arabia.
Under the Geneva accord, the P5+1 agreed to pause efforts to further reduce Iran’s crude oil sales, allowing consuming countries to continue buying their “current average amounts of crude oil.” The interim agreement is meant to build confidence for a final agreement on the nuclear program.
Under that agreement, Iran’s oil exports will be held to about 1 million barrels per day, the level its sales have averaged this year. Iran’s oil shipments were about 2.5 million bpd in the beginning of 2012, before U.S. and European sanctions took effect. The U.S. sanctions law could have driven Iran’s oil sales even lower if Iran and the P5+1 did not come to agreement in Geneva.
The State Department said Turkey and Taiwan also qualified for the waivers. Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore and Sri Lanka, which no longer purchase oil from Iran, also qualified for the exceptions.
3 Comments on "US extends Iran oil sanctions waivers to China, India, South Korea"
DC on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 4:37 pm
I would like to see what legal basis these ‘sanctions'(really just a polite way of saying economic warfare), the US has here. None that I can see. Since uS sanctions are, in effect, illegal, that makes these so-called ‘waivers’ even more worthless. If I were a senior Chinese official being lectured by a slug like John Kerry on whose and how much oil I could buy, I would sort-of-politely tell him to shove his waivers where the sun doesn’t shine.
Or, alternately, I would start working on a banking, trade system not controlled by the uS or its corporate rulers.
Q/But despite the Geneva agreement, the United States reserves the right to sanction any oil consuming country should it suddenly increase its purchases.
-A self-appointed ‘right’. The world needs to dump the uS dollar like yesterday. Economic terrorism by the uS is just as unacceptable as its actual military terrorism.
rockman on Sun, 1st Dec 2013 5:04 pm
Iran sold 2.36 million tons of crude to China in May, equivalent to about 555,557 barrels per day (bpd), according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs released on Friday. The increase in China’s imports of Iranian crude came just before the United States renewed the country’s waiver on US sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil revenues. The figures show a 49.5 percent rise from the 371,500 bpd of Iranian crude that China imported in April. The May level rose 6.4 percent from 521,936 bpd a year earlier.
And from the Christian Science Monitor:
Beijing — There were few signs that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had any success during his visit to Beijing this month to persuade China to help pressure Tehran over its nuclear program by buying less Iranian oil. “China’s regular demand for energy has nothing to do with the nuclear issue and it should not be affected,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Jan. 11, after Mr. Geithner met with top Chinese leaders.
But while Beijing’s reluctance to go along with United States sanctions came as little surprise, at the same time there seemed equally little chance that China would increase its Iranian oil intake to help Tehran if other countries cut back their purchases. The European Union has agreed in principle to an oil embargo, and US allies such as South Korea and Japan, two other major importers of Iranian oil, could also join America in pressuring Tehran.
Oil traders here say Beijing, which last year bought 11 percent of its oil imports from Iran, cut back on purchases this month. But this appears to be a result of a dispute over price and credit terms, as China seeks to profit from Iran’s straitened circumstances by bargaining for a better deal. The temporary cutback, for which Beijing has compensated with emergency purchases from Vietnam, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa, does not mean that China has any sympathy for planned US sanctions, analysts here say.
Chinese officials have repeatedly criticized the effort to make other nations follow America’s lead. “To place one country’s law above international law and force others to obey is not reasonable,” Mr. Liu said Jan. 11. “China is not a US ally, and it is not obliged to abide by US law,” adds Dr. Tao. “This is hegemonic behavior.”
Chinese leaders may expect that Mr. Obama will exempt Beijing from the effects of the new bill, as he is empowered to do, on national security grounds. They may also be counting on resistance to the congressional bill from US allies such as Japan and South Korea, both of which have expressed reservations about its impact on world oil prices. Previous congressionally mandated international sanctions have failed, Tao recalls. “I doubt very much that the stipulations of the new law can really be implemented,” says Tao. “It will cause widespread opposition around the world, not just from China and Russia but from US allies, too.”
BillT on Mon, 2nd Dec 2013 1:11 am
China has pulled all of the junk-yard dog’s (US’) teeth and now pretty much ignores him. They are about to tighten that collar around his neck with dollar dumping and eventually they will castrate him with an established international banking system not attached to the West. I hope it happens before 2020.