Iran signs new oil deals, focuses on Africa

Tehran (Platts)--3Jul2012/802 am EDT/1202 GMT

Iran said Tuesday it has signed new oil sale contracts with unspecified countries, with a focus on the African market, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Mohsen Qamsari, the National Iranian Oil Company's director for international affairs, said that his company has adopted a policy of approaching new markets following the halt of oil exports to the EU.

EU sanctions that prohibit the import of Iranian crude oil came into effect Sunday, days after US financial sanctions designed to curb Iranian oil exports came into force.

"One of the new markets for exports of Iran's oil is that of the African countries," Qamsari was quoted as saying.

"Under the current conditions, despite the oil exports' halt to Europe, new contracts with other customer countries have been signed," Qamsari said.

The NIOC director's comments follow those of the company's head Ahmad Ghalehbani, who said last week it would take a month to find the alternative customers for European refiners.

"Definitely, within the next month, new buyers will replace the Europeans for all the oil bought by Europeans," Ghalehbani was quoted as saying Saturday by the official IRNA news agency.

Qamsari also confirmed oil sale agreements made with Kenya and said: "Soon more details about new Iran oil exports contracts to new countries will be announced."

Mehr said that Iran has agreed to sell 80,000 b/d of oil to Kenya, following the loss of the 500,000 b/d market of the EU 27-bloc nation from the beginning of July. The agency named Tajikistan and Zimbabwe as other countries in talks with Iran to this end.

Iran has said it would agree to sell oil to intermediate companies if necessary guarantees were provided for the destination, with an emphasis on long-term contracts. It has also considered barter deals as well as receiving oil money in currencies other than the dollar and euro to facilitate signing oil deals with previous and future customers.

The international sanctions imposed on the country's financial and banking dealings as well as its crude exports are aimed at pressuring the Islamic Republic to abandon its controversial nuclear program.