Baku, Azerbaijan, May 22
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
At present, all levels of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran should stand in a “military formation” – which, however, is not something that is currently observed, Hedayatollah Khademi, member of the Iranian Parliament Commission on Energy, told Fars News Agency, Trend reports.
According to him, in its “military formation”, Iran's Petroleum Ministry should sell 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, as the state budget allocated to the ministry is meant for the sale of these quantities during the said period. Only in this case can it be said that the ministry fulfils its obligations.
"If the Iranian government had taken steps against the sale of crude oil, Iran would not be currently known as a single-product economy (mainly exporting crude oil) and, by making use of its potential, would export several products to global markets," he said. In his words, in such a case, it would get much more difficult to impose sanctions on Iran.
"Unfortunately, the customers who had purchased the oil for the past 30-40 years, helped the country and used their bank accounts for money transfers, have been mistreated by the Petroleum Ministry and the government. So, they left Iran," he added.
The US imposed sanctions on Iran in November 2018, while providing a 6-month exemption period for 8 countries buying oil from Iran. The period ended on May 2, 2019.