This is just the beginning. Watch oil prices climb exponentially here on out as tensions in the Middle East near a crescendo. With invasion, all bets are off. Oil prices will be impossible to predict. The only certainty is that they will be devastatingly high...
Iran has halted oil shipments to Britain and France, the Oil Ministry said Sunday, in an apparent pre-emptive blow against the European Union after the bloc imposed sanctions on Iran's crucial fuel exports.
The EU imposed tough sanctions against Iran last month, which included a freeze of the country's central bank assets and an oil embargo set to begin in July. Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi had warned earlier this month that Tehran could cut off oil exports to "hostile" European nations. The 27-nation EU accounts for about 18 percent of Iran's oil exports.
However, the Iranian action was not likely to have any significant direct impact on European supplies because both Britain and France had already moved last year to sharply curtail oil purchases from Tehran to less than 3 percent of their daily needs.
The EU sanctions, along with other punitive measures imposed by the U.S., are part of Western efforts to derail Iran's disputed nuclear program, which the West fears is aimed at developing atomic weapons. Iran denies the charges, and says its program is for peaceful purposes.
The spokesman for Iran's Oil Ministry, Ali Reza Nikzad-Rahbar, said on the ministry's website Sunday that "crude oil exports to British and French companies have been halted."
"We have our own customers and have no problem to sell and export our crude oil to new customers," he said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/iran-oil-ministry-exports-cut-britain-france-133232380.html
