Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said that the US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit a multinational nuclear deal would not affect Tehran’s oil exports if the European Union (EU) could salvage the pact, Reuters reported.
The Iran nuclear deal was signed by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, along with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the EU in 2015.
The deal entailed rolling back Iran’s uranium enrichment and allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to access the country’s nuclear sites to ensure its compliance with the agreement, in return for easing economic sanctions on Iran, allowing it to export crude oil and permitting foreign investments to flow into the country.
“Every new decision in OPEC needs unanimity… I believe that if the European Union helps us… the level of the oil exports of Iran will not change,” Zanganeh told reporters after a meeting with the EU’s energy chief, Miguel Arias Cañete.
Following Trump’s decision to withdraw from the deal, sanctions were re-imposed, including sanctions aimed at Iran’s oil sector and transactions with its central bank.
Brent crude prices had been rising even before Trump’s decision, with prices climbing more than 40% over the past year. Brent rose more than $1.10 on Thursday to reach a high of $80.50 a barrel, the highest since late 2014. During the last round of sanctions, Iran’s oil supplies fell by around 1m barrels per day, but the country re-emerged as a major oil exporter after sanctions were lifted in 2016.
It is expected that Egypt will be affected as the value of financial allocations for petroleum subsidies decreased to EGP 89bn, compared to EGP 110bn this year in the draft budget, based on a Brent crude price of $67 per barrel.
Each $1 increase in Brent crude price would cost the state EGP 4bn, according to the draft budget.
