Iran stops oil sales to British, French companies

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/ ... 7W20120219

(Reuters) - Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said on Sunday, in a retaliatory measure against fresh EU sanctions on the Islamic state's lifeblood, oil.

"Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped ... we will sell our oil to new customers," spokesman Alireza Nikzad was quoted as saying by the ministry of petroleum website.

The European Union in January decided to stop importing crude from Iran from July 1 over its disputed nuclear program, which the West says is aimed at building bombs. Iran denies this.

Iran's oil minister said on February 4 that the Islamic state would cut its oil exports to "some" European countries.".......................

lol . "We won't sell you our oil."

"We already told you we won't be buying your oil."

Haha, world market, limit the market and we all pay more. But the oil belongs to the govts and companies and people that own it, they can sell or not sell, just like you and your car.

So when France goes to another supplier, perhaps ones that we use, this will effect us.

Limits on the market are rarely something to smile at, esp for an economist (unless you are a govt economist).

Oil is pretty fungible. Most people who are consuming it don't care where it came from and couldn't tell you the difference between Saudi and Persian petrol.

Dilbert puts this best

My friends in NY are paying 3.80/gal right now. >$4.00 this summer is pretty much guaranteed I think. I doubt this Iran standoff is going to end well. Fasten your seat belts!

Love those Dilbert cartoons. Dogbert for President! LOL

Reminds me of the SNL skit about the toyota pious.

Are you guys saying essentially, when we don't buy oil for say $100 per unit from Iran, they will sell it to some other company in a country that our companies do trade with and we can pay $105 for it, Iran still getting $100 and someone else making $5 on the sale so we feel it is OK. (note the continued references to companies and not those blanket statements about countries this is healthy and often overlooked, glad to see it here.)

If so it would be a lot like corporate taxes. You can tax the people or you can tax companies and pay the same tax plus profit. Lower cost to buy oil direct from producers regardless of policies of their leaders and to tax the people directly.

Semi-off track, I was comparing prices on hybrid Honda Civics and the regular models also comparing gas mileage, and based on the goverments own numbers of people paying $3.70 a gallon, it would still take 10 years to pay for the hybrid model. And as I understand it, you need a new battery system after 8 years, so you are better off buying the lower mileage standard Civic.

I thought I heard Honda was bringing back a CNG civic. I'd rather have that myself, or a small SUV with natural gas. I think the equivalent is about $1.00/gal or so.

Joe wrote: I thought I heard Honda was bringing back a CNG civic. I'd rather have that myself, or a small SUV with natural gas. I think the equivalent is about $1.00/gal or so.

One of my coworkers only buys those for his family, drives in from Colorado Springs every day. Last one he bought had to be shipped from California. The tax break about even outs the purchase price.