SHELL STRUGGLES TO PAY OFF $1 BLN BILL FOR IRAN OIL
- Royal Dutch Shell is struggling to pay off $1 billion that it owes Iran for crude oil because European Union and U.S. financial sanctions now make it almost impossible to process payments, industry sources said, according to Reuters.
Four sources said the oil major owes a large sum to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) for deliveries of crude, with one putting the figure at close to $1 billion. A debt of that size would equate to roughly four large tanker loads of Iranian crude or about 8 million barrels.
The European Union toughened financial sanctions and placed a ban on Iranian oil imports on January 23, but gave companies until July 1 to wind down their existing business.
With daily contract volumes of 100,000 barrels, Shell ranked as Iran's second biggest corporate client - along with France's Total - behind Turkey's Tupras.
Rigorous U.S. and European financial measures, aimed at punishing Iran for its nuclear program have already come into force, making it increasingly difficult to pay for and ship crude from Iran, say oil executives.
Industry sources say some of Iran's big customers may have been using the Dubai-based Noor Islamic Bank to channel payments to Iran. It is not known whether Shell was processing payments via Noor Islamic Bank.
Diplomats say the bank bowed to pressure from Washington and cut ties with Iranian banks in the United Arab Emirates at the end of last year.
Given the outstanding amount owed in the face of sanctions, senior oil executives say the only way forward is for Shell to ask the British government to help settle the account with Iran. An approach was made by Shell, sources say, but the company was rebuffed.
A small portion of the Shell debt could be written off through an outstanding payment NIOC owes the company for development of the offshore Soroush/Nowrooz oilfields, say industry sources.
Shell and European rivals such as Total and Italy's Eni have built longstanding relationships with Iran, OPEC's second largest exporter, through their work at the country's oilfields and years of crude oil purchases.
But while they are loath to burn bridges with Tehran, they also cannot afford to put business in the United States and elsewhere in the West at risk.
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- 1877 Birth of public and political figure Sargis (Sergo) Khanoyan in Tbilissi. In 1937 he was killed -- a victim of Stalin's terror.
- 1912 Birth of Martin Karamian, writer and translator in Varkhuno, Georgia. He worked to improve Armenian-Georgian literary relations.
- 1929 The People's Commissariat of Education of the Armenian SSR approves the Kurdish alphabet for the Kurdish Minority in Armenia.
- 1998 The American-Armenian physician Jack Gevorgian, for the first time in history, implemented the suicide, by lethal injection of drugs, of a patient suffering from an incurable disease. The court sentenced him to a long prison term for his "act of mercy".
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