Posted on 06/25/2006 1:09:07 PM PDT by familyop
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Sunday repeated threats that it was ready to use its massive oil exports as a weapon to defend itself if it felt in danger in an international dispute over its atomic program.
But Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said international sanctions on 2.5 million barrels per day of Iranian crude exports would be impractical and would send oil prices over $100 a barrel, up from around $70 now.
Iran has been hauled before the U.N. Security Council over suspicions it is seeking nuclear missiles, a charge it denies. It could face economic sanctions and the United States has consistently declined to rule out military action.
Vaziri-Hamaneh said earlier this month the world's fourth biggest crude producer would prefer not to play the oil card and would only do so to defend its rights.
He struck a similar tone on Sunday, telling state television: "I think using the oil weapon would be advantageous to Iran in times of threats."
"But using such a weapon in the normal situation in the country and oil markets would mean confronting the world and we do not have such a policy," he added.
Eighty percent of Iran's export earnings come from oil.
However, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman has said the United States would be in "good shape" even if Iran did close the spigots, owing to healthy stockpiles.
UPDATE 2-Iran to halt gasoline imports, impose rationing ("Adds background")
Reuters ^ | 23JUN06 | Christian Oliver
Excerpt:
"Despite holding the world's second biggest oil reserves, Iran lacks refinery capacity and imports more than 40 percent of the 70 million litres (440,000 barrels) of gasoline its motorists burn each day . . . Most of the gasoline imports come from western Europe, with trading house Vitol the leading supplier, market sources said."
Price pump alert!
Bush hasn't the balls to bust some balls.
We need to simply ban the importation of oil. It would mess us up about as badly as we were messed up during WW-II for about a year, and it would mess all of the rogue states in the world up permanently. A year later, oil produced in America would sell for $25 a barrel in America, and a whole lot of the worlds villians would be back to riding camels and living in tents.
Don't show up at a nuclear war armed with an oilcan.
An Iranian oil embargo would affect the world market, but it would impact their good friends in China more than most.
LOL
Actually, WE should use oil as a weapon. The US Navy should blockade Iran, since they have no refining capacity. I don't know how many pipelines they have, but this would smart.
US gets most of its oil from Canada.
Even better, lets bomb Iran's oil exporting facilities. I bet the rest of the world replaces Iran's output before Iran's goverment collapses.
Nice thought, but China needs oil to ramp up as a super power. If we don't buy, there are other nations that will.
Look for crude prices to rise another $5 per barrel on this news, as senate Democrats and RINO's continue to block ANWR and offshore drilling.
Pulling the US out of the world market would collapse the price of oil worldwide. On top of that, we'd be totally free to deal with the lunatics running Iran any way we wanted to.
Iran is rationing gasoline now, I guess they want to have none at all.
Thanks to Bush and team filling the strategic oil supplies to the brim.
Let's drop SUVs on them.
Then send the troops from Iraq to ensure that oil production continues.
--Boris
Iran was short on funds for the week and wanted to spike oil for a few days.
China and India are nations with growing economies that would gladly buy oil at the new reduced prices.
Like I say, OPEC and AlQuaeda would be back to tents and camels. I'm not worried about Chinese or Indians flying airplanes into our skyscrapers.
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