Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 8
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
By using Monero cryptocurrency, it will be possible to carry out international financial exchange without physically transferring money and even without cooperating with international organizations such as SWIFT, Iranian expert on energy economics Abdol Samad Rahmati said in an interview with ILNA.
He said that Venezuela has proposed to use cryptocurrencies and that currency will be secured by oil and gas reserves.
He added that Iran ranks second in terms of global gas reserves and fourth in terms of global oil reserves. On the other hand, the increase in price of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple also attracts attention, he noted.
Iran cannot sell its oil directly, as long as the US sanctions continue, because heavy metals in any country’s oil and its properties can be traced, he said.
The most important feature of Iranian oil is the high percentage of heavy metals, such as vanadium and nickel, which cannot be changed in any way, he noted.
Therefore, one of the ways is to turn oil into petrochemical products, and great steps have been taken in this direction since 2012, he said.
“We have found good markets in Africa and Europe,” he noted. “The sale of petrochemical products has increased. More investments need to be made to this industry. We should work even to build oil refineries in other countries and turn oil into petrochemical products there. That is how Saudi Arabia is doing this job now and is building refineries at the country’s own expense, supplies fuel and sells oil products.”
Rahmati added that presently some countries of the Persian Gulf buy and sell oil through the stock market. It is necessary to use their mechanism and sell oil in the stock exchange, he said.
“Presently, Iran has an option to benefit from experience of Europe, China, India and perhaps Russia,” he said. These countries are facing sanctions. Of course, we shouldn’t forget that the Iranian government’s portfolio also has good solutions. In my opinion, the government will reveal them in the coming months and offer good solutions to overcome the sanctions.”