EU reaches agreement to ban imports of Iranian oil

European Union governments have reached a preliminary agreement to ban imports of Iranian crude to the EU but have yet to decide when such an embargo would be put in place, EU diplomats said on Wednesday. The agreement, news of which sent crude oil prices higher, followed talks in the last days of December between EU envoys, diplomats said. Objections to the idea, notably from Greece, were dropped during the talks, they said.

On Wednesday, the price of a barrel of benchmark Brent crude rose more than a dollar from its previous close to a session peak of nearly $114, following the news that Europeans had agreed in principle to ban Iranian crude.

You do have to wonder how much the price of oil will now go up to.

www.haaretz.com...

To be fair its a fairly token gesture, the vast majority of Europes crude comes from the North Sea, Russia and Venezuela, something like 2% actually comes from Iran so meh.

I don't see how these bans/sanctions work.

Wouldn't Iran just continue to do business with China and Russia as usual? I wouldn't matter if the rest of the world ignored Iran totally, China would be able to use all their oil, and whatever else.

reply to post by Ixtab


True, but

this is another step towards a war in Iran, what do you think Russia will do to the Oil and Gas pipelines leading into Europe if/when the war starts?

yup, europe is only kicking themselves in the shins!!

the price of petrol/diesel will increase here in europe and the burdin will fall on small businesses and the already struggling average person, which will be less money spent in an already terrible economy.

as said, china and russia will just buy the extra oil.
i doubt iran are too dissapointed about the news.

so well done e.u. leaders, you just shot yourself in the foot.

I am glad I don't drive at this point.

Yep, oil prices are gonna go up again.

When I was living in Alaska a few years back gas there got up to $5.75 a gallon when oil prices hit 200 a barrel.
The cost of everything went up because you have to ship or fly everything in, but people adjusted to it. All of a sudden there were 10 electric cars on the island and people sold off their SUV's for cheaper gas mileage cars. I saw a lot of people going back to wood heat or electric which was way cheaper than heating oil.

To me, higher gas prices are a good thing, it makes people downsize their gas guzzling trucks, and think cheaper and cleaner. We have to get off of middle eastern oil, no better way to do it than to make it unaffordable.

Just my opinion.

reply to post by Mimir


Make a fortune selling us gas and crude I would imagine, the price of Urals Crude is at a 20 year high

A couple days ago an oil tanker carrying 600,000 barrels left Libya's al - Sadr oil port headed to an undisclosed location in Europe.

Europe will not suffer from this. They will buy elsewhere - there will be a contingency plan for this.

4.39% of Europe's oil imports came from Iran in 2011.

Source(From EU Commission): ec.europa.eu...

Iran will sell their oil to other countries, because they have to, or they'll go bust. 17% of their oil goes to the EU, but now this 17% will likely go to Russia and China, who in turn, will demand lower prices. Iran will not gain from this. Think about it logically, people.

EU is not shooting itself in the foot. It gets 80%+ of its oil from Africa and Europe.

Yeah and normal joe will get bummed at the gas pump with price increases!