Iran oil industry unfazed by sanctions: Minister

Iran Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi says the country is not concerned about the impact of Western sanctions on the development of its oil industry.

“In recent years, with the good support from the government, suitable investments have been made in the [Iranian oil] industry,” Qasemi said on Wednesday.

The minister stated that Iran has successfully passed through the hardest phase of the Western sanctions against its energy sector.

He added that Iran has become self-sufficient in the production and manufacturing of equipment used in the oil industry, which allay concerns about this sector.

On January 13, Managing-Director of the National Petrochemical Company (NPC) Abdolhossein Bayat said Iranian experts have mastered the technological know-how and achieved the licensing required to manufacture 38 petrochemical products.

These achievements come against a background of illegal US-engineered sanctions imposed on Iran’s energy and banking sectors by Western countries.

At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

The sanctions came into force in early summer 2012.

On October 15, 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.

The illegal US-engineered sanctions have been imposed based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegation, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.