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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| U.S. Aims Lethal Blow at Tehran’s Finances by Prohibiting Oil Exports |
| 2019-04-27 |
| [FDD.ORG] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced yesterday that the U.S. would stop granting the waivers that have allowed select importers to continue purchasing Iranian oil after the return of U.S. sanctions last November. By targeting an indispensable source of income for the holy manal regime, the Trump administration took a major step toward implementing its policy of maximum pressure. When the U.S. reinstated sanctions on Iran, it granted waivers to eight countries, allowing them to import slightly more than 1 million barrels of oil per day for a period of six months. The waivers are officially known as Significant Reduction Exceptions, or SREs. Despite the U.S. allowance of 1 million barrels per day, actual Iranian exports reached 1.7 million barrels per day in March, a difference worth tens of millions of dollars per day to Tehran. Reducing Iran’s exports to zero, or even to less than 500,000 barrels per day, might strike a lethal blow to the regime’s finances. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s budget proposal for 2019 assumes exports of 1.5 million barrels per day at most and an average price of $54 per barrel; the resulting income would cover about $20 billion of the $47 billion Rouhani plans to spend. While stopping the waivers is a logical extension of the president’s policy of maximum pressure on Iran, Pompeo’s announcement confounded the expectations of oil market analysts who assessed that Trump would shy away from any move that risked a major increase in gasoline prices for American consumers. With Venezuela’s exports down sharply and new unrest threatening Libyan and Algerian oil production, the potential cost of slashing Iranian exports has risen. The price of oil has already risen 40 percent in 2019, although it began the year just above $50 per barrel, at the low end of its range for the past five years. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 The last paragraph is a complete lie. The US is self sufficient in oil. We produce 12m barrels per day and consume 19m. That's a 7m barrel a day shortfall. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2019-04-27 21:39 |
| #1 The last paragraph is a complete lie. The US is self sufficient in oil. We will pass Saudi Arabia this year. Shale oil did it. |
| Posted by: Herb McCoy 2019-04-27 07:55 |