Week in Brief 25.01.2019

In the third attempt this week, the National Oil Company of Iran offered one million barrels of crude oil at the Energy Exchange. Although during the previous two offers, all the crude oil was traded, this time no investor showed an interest to make an offer.

Taadol newspapers writes that according to some oil market experts, in the current situation of sanctions, offering oil at the Energy Exchange is not a solution.

“What is under sanction, is Iranian petroleum and not its owner”, says Morteza Behruzifar, Oil Market Analyst. “It does not matter who offers it internationally; it won’t be easier to sell it through private individuals either”.

He argues that transparency at the global oil market is to such extend that everyone knows where each single barrel of oil is coming from. In this situation, given that the US wants to block trading the Iranian oil, finding a bypass would be practically impossible. And this is the main reason for investors not to show any interest to this week’s offer at Energy Market.