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second order from the Iranians for 20 jets is unlikely to go forward now the sanctions are in place.
The importance of the deliveries from ATR—co-owned by Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo—is shown by the fact that several regional airports have gradually been reopened thanks to the expansion of the fleet size at IranAir.
As regards the immediate future of Iran’s international air travel industry under the reimposed US sanctions régime, IranAir’s CEO Farzaneh Sharafbafi remarked months before the sanctions took effect that she fears Iranian airlines flying to foreign airports will soon have to deliver cash in suitcases to obtain enough fuel with US sanctions pushing the Islamic Republic’s companies out of the world financial system.
9.0 Industry & Sectors 9.1 Sector news
9.1.1 Oil & gas sector news
The Trump administration is still a long way from achieving its stated goal of reducing Iranian oil export sales to zero less than a week before an attempted worldwide embargo on crude shipments from Iran takes effect on November 5, CNBC reported on October 30.
Iran’s oil exports fell by about a third in the five months through September, the report said, tumbling by about 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) since President Donald Trump announced in May that he was abandoning a nuclear accord with Iran and restoring wide-ranging sanctions on its economy.
Still, Iran was reportedly selling roughly 1.7mn to 1.9mn bpd of crude oil and condensate, a super light form of oil, in September, according to estimates by investment banks, tanker-tracking firms and the International Energy Agency. That was down from a 2018 peak of 2.7mn bpd in June, according to ClipperData.
In the first six months of the year, Iran was averaging 2.4mn bpd in shipments, S&P Global Platts Analytics estimates.
Analysts widely expect the reductions in exports to balloon to between 1mn and 1.5mn bpd by the end of the year.
Some of Iran’s biggest customers, including first and second biggest buyers China and India, are expected to keep buying its oil, while Turkey has shown no inclination to end purchases from its neighbour. There is as yet no clear picture of which countries might obtain waivers from Washington to continue buying Iranian oil, at least for the short term and probably at a reduced extent. “Iranian crude and condensate exports look set to finish October around a similar level to September, although we expect volumes to drop off next month as sanctions kick in and buyers dissipate,” Matt Smith, director of commodity research at ClipperData, a firm that tracks tanker traffic, was cited as saying. Petro-Logistics, another tanker-tracking firm, said Iran probably lost more than 100,000 barrels per day in October.
Iran has announced it is to jointly build an oil refinery by the border between its Aras Free Zone (AFZ) and Armenia’s Meghri Free Economic Zone (MFEZ), the Iranian parliament’s official news agency ICANA
38 IRAN Country Report November 2018 www.intellinews.com