Sanctions failed:Iranian oil selling at $115 on European markets

European buyers purchased Iran’s light crude at $115.70 per barrel on Monday, according to the National Iranian Oil Company.
Iranian light crude was also sold at $113.40 per barrel on Asian markets, a NIOC report said.

In July, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said that although the West has imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil sector with the goal of toppling the Islamic establishment, the country’s oil exports will never be halted because oil consuming countries need Iranian crude.

“There are many ways to easily sell oil, one of which is to take advantage of businessmen and the private sector,” Qasemi added.

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.

On June 9, Iran called fellow OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates oil quota violators and accused them of depressing global crude prices by over-pumping.

“It is not right that two or three countries compensate for a country that is being sanctioned. OPEC members should not work against each other,” Iran’s OPEC governor, Mohammad-Ali Khatibi was quoted as saying at the time.