Zangeneh: Iran's Foreign Ministry is Not Satisfied with Europe's Oil Proposal

Iran's Minister of Oil, Bijan Zangeneh, stated on Saturday regarding the oil proposal presented in the European Union's package to maintain the nuclear agreement (JCPOA): "I have not seen this proposal yet, but my colleagues in the Foreign Ministry have seen it and are apparently not very satisfied with its details." A day before these remarks, the President of Iran had also told the leaders of France and Germany that the European proposal for preserving the JCPOA does not meet all of Iran's demands. According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Zangeneh also mentioned that the Islamic Republic expects the European Union to fulfill its "responsibility" in protecting the JCPOA. Some domestic media in Iran have reported that a guarantee for the purchase of one million barrels of Iranian oil by the European Union is part of the proposed package in the new negotiations to maintain the JCPOA. However, this claim has not been confirmed by officials from the Islamic Republic or the European Union. The guarantee of oil sales is also one of the main conditions set by Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, for remaining in the JCPOA. Before the previous sanctions from the US and Europe, Iran was exporting a total of one million barrels of oil to the world, but after the JCPOA, the volume of these exports increased again. In 2017, Iran exported 2.125 million barrels of crude oil and about 400,000 barrels of gas condensate daily. About one-third of these shipments went to Europe, while the rest reached Iran's Asian customers, including China, India, South Korea, and Japan. According to a table announced by Brian Hook, the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department, a new round of sanctions, which includes the automotive sector and Iran's gold trade, will begin on August 4, and sanctions on oil, energy, and banking transactions will start on November 4. Zangeneh also called Trump's remarks "insulting". Meanwhile, the US President on Wednesday, July 4, referred to OPEC as an "exclusive" organization and ordered its members to "end prices right now". A day later, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran's representative on the OPEC Board, asked the US President to stop his "reprehensible" tweets regarding oil prices. Zangeneh also described these remarks as "an insult to the national sovereignty of OPEC member countries". He stated that there is "a trade war going on" regarding the oil market and that the government is doing its utmost to maintain Iran's oil market. The US has also responded to these statements by saying it will not allow the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf to be cut off. The global research division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the second-largest bank in the United States, has predicted that if Washington can reduce Iran's oil sales to zero by November, oil prices may rise to over $120 per barrel. Donald Trump has also asked Saudi Arabia to increase its daily oil production capacity by two million barrels to prevent a shortage in the market, but the mentioned research body doubts that Riyadh can produce 12 million barrels of oil or more per day. Although rising oil prices increase costs for the US, the higher prices will make US shale oil extraction more profitable, allowing the country to increase its oil exports.