Asian, African refiners extend oil deals with Iran for 2012

TEHRAN,April 22(MNA) - All Asian and African refiners that buy oil from Iran extended their contacts in 2012, according to the National Iranian Oil Company’s director for international affairs. “There is no problem is selling and exporting crude oil,” Mohsen Qamsari told the Mehr News Agency. Qamsari rejected rumors about Iran stopping oil export to Malaysia, saying that the Asian country imports some 14,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Iran. “A certain refiner, for example in Japan, may have reduced oil imports from Iran, but another refiner in the same country has signed a new deal to raise imports,” Qamsari added. Iranian Oil minister Rostam Qasemi on Thursday raised the prospect of more cutoffs in oil sales to the European Union if the bloc failed to show some flexibility toward Iran ahead of a second round of nuclear talks next month. Qasemi said that while Iran has cut sales to Britain and France, it continues selling crude to "other countries" in the world. A senior European Union official said on Friday that the EU member states may review in the next two months an embargo on Iranian oil imports that is scheduled to take effect on July 1, Reuters reported. EU member states had agreed to review the embargo plan as soon as this month because of concerns over its potential impact on global crude oil prices and the difficulty countries such as Greece face in finding alternative supplies. The bloc imported some 18 percent of Iran’s 2.2 million-barrel-a-day production.