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Another source told Caixin that a group of Wood Mackenzie has estimated that Pipe-
500 employees would move to PipeChina as part China will eventually be worth $80-105bn once
of the management transfer. the transfers are complete.
The country has a handful of privately Official newswire Xinhua reported in May
owned LNG import projects, while the three that the company had started building a new
state majors’ control 90,000 km of the country’s LNG terminal in Yantai City in eastern China’s
130,000 km of oil and gas pipelines. The gov- Shandong Province. The company expects to
ernment wants to bring control of the country’s bring the first phase of the 20mn tonne per year
transportation infrastructure under an inde- terminal, which is projected to reduce Shan-
pendent state company, thereby making it easier dong’s carbon dioxide emissions by 32mn tpy,
for third parties to gain access. online in 2023.™

Iran threatens legal action

over South Korean oil debt

POLICY THE governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)
has called on banks in South Korea to release oil
money frozen under US pressure to the Islamic
Republic, warning that Tehran reserves the right
to take legal action under international law.
“It is appalling to see that [South] Korean
banks have conveniently neglected their obli-
gations, common international financial agree-
ments, and decided to play politics and follow
illegal and unilateral US sanctions,” Abdolnaser
Hemmati told Bloomberg on June 10.
Iran could launch legal action to gain access
to the funds, he said, without specifying the lend-
ers said to be sitting on the owed money.
The Iranian foreign ministry has said South
Korea is around $7bn in arrears for delivered
Iranian oil. Since the US Trump administration
in May last year dropped sanctions waivers on
sales of crude from Iran, and switched to a sanc-
tions policy aimed at reducing Iranian oil sold on
world markets to zero, Seoul appears to ceased
ordering consignments of oil from Iran.
Given South Korea’s increasingly fraught rela-
tions with North Korea, and its reliance on US
military backing, Seoul is in no position to push
back against White House policies such as the
moves to force Iranian oil off world markets and
shut Iran almost entirely out of the world finan- to complete humanitarian transactions using the
cial system. money locked in Korean banks, he added.
“We have been consulting with the US, Iran The US has sought to “stonewall” the plan,
and the banks holding the frozen funds, seek- according to Hemmati.
ing to make progress on this issue,” Koh Kyung- Iran announced earlier this month that it
sok, a South Korean foreign ministry official, had received medicines valued at $500,000
told Bloomberg. “So far, we’ve been able to uti- from South Korea after two years of negoti-
lise some of the funds to expand humanitarian ations. South Korean officials said the drugs
trade with Iran, and will continue to seek ways shipped were for the treatment of genetic
to increase such exchanges,” he added. diseases. This month, South Korea plans to
Iran and South Korea have been working on ship coronavirus (COVID-19) test kits worth
a special trade vehicle which would allow Iran $2mn to Iran, they added.™

Week 23 11•June•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P9