Tehran, Iran, Nov.30
Trend:
Iran crude oil sale at the energy exchange during its past two sessions has indicated that the market was ready for transactions at the right political environment, where it could stand as an option to confront sanctions, Energy law professor at university of Tehran,Hassan Moradi told Trend in an interview.
"In the first session, around 750,000 barrels of crude oil were sold. At first, the prices were a little higher than the National Iranian Oil Company(NIOC) rate, so it was not economically attractive, however at the second stage of sale, the reformed price was a bit lower than the usual NIOC rate, so it was economically justified by the investors," he said.
According to Moradi, the exchange should offer equal profits to the costumers, so the investors would have interest to enter the investment market.
"So it is not important if the NIOC would sell less oil, because in the long term, the energy exchange can bring profits to the private sector and that would be in the interest of the NIOC," he said.
Moradi also spoke about the hidden identities of Iran's oil customers during the energy exchange transactions.
"In all international transactions this is a basic issue, the buyers do not have the right to revel each other's identity, specially during the sanctions situation where it can harm the exchange," he said.
"As far as I know there is no limitation for investment of public sector at the energy exchange, for example, the subsidiaries of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare or the Social Security Investment Company and similar companies had been active in the market," he said.
Moradi noted that Iran's private sector is either the energy mediator who has good relations with the oil customers, or it has solid and direct connections to international companies which can coordinate the process of oil delivery in a specific harbor while the payment is being wired before every purchase at the exchange.
"However, after the suspension of SWIFT, the procedure has been carried out by intermediary financial companies, transferring the money for the buyers," Moradi added.