$7.8 billion of Iran oil money stranded

Iran has not received yet $7.8 billion in revenues from the sale of its crude oil in recent months, Government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said on Thursday without explanation.

Iran’s oil customers are mainly China, India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey but US and European sanctions are preventing international banks from transferring money to the Islamic Republic.

Those clients have cleared some of Iran’s oil dues under a payment mechanism agreed between Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries as part of a temporary nuclear deal.

Iran’s crude oil exports should remain in the range of 1 million to 1.1 million barrels per day under that arrangement. The revenues are deposited in an escrow account which Iran may use to buy goods.

Nobakht said oil revenues in the past 12 months had totaled $52.8 billion at the official rate of the US dollar.

Under the terms of the temporary nuclear agreement, Iran has received several billion dollars of frozen oil revenues in installments.