Iran Haults sale of Oil to French and British Companies

Iran has halted oil sales to British and French companies, the nation's oil ministry has said.

A spokesman was reported as saying on the ministry's website that Iran would "sell our oil to new customers".

European Union member states had earlier agreed to stop importing Iranian crude from 1 July.

The move is intended to pressure Tehran to stop enriching uranium, which can be used for civilian nuclear purposes but also to build warheads.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, but the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency says it has information suggesting Iran has carried out tests "relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device".

Sunday's statement on the oil ministry website was attributed to spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad Rahbar.

BBC world affairs correspondent Peter Biles says it appears to be another act of retaliation in the showdown between Iran and the West.

The French news agency AFP says the decision is not expected to have a big impact. Last year France bought only 3% of its oil - 58,000 barrels per day (b/d) - from Iran and the UK imported even less Iranian oil. A UK government official told the BBC there would be "no impact on UK energy security".

Some Iranian media had announced on Wednesday that Iran had stopped oil exports to the Netherlands, Greece, France, Portugal, Spain and Italy in retaliation for the EU's oil embargo, but this was later denied by the oil ministry.

The EU oil embargo, agreed last month, was phased so member states that were relatively dependent on Iranian crude - notably Greece, Spain and Italy - had enough time to find alternative sources.

The bloc currently buys about 20% of Iran's oil exports, which account for a majority of government revenue.

However, Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said that a cut in exports to Europe would not hurt Tehran.

Oil industry sources quoted by Reuters news agency say Iran's top oil buyers in Europe have already started reducing purchases of Iranian crude.

Last year Iran supplied more than 700,000 barrels per day (b/d) to the EU and Turkey, but by the start of this year that had dropped to about 650,000 b/d, Reuters reported on Thursday.

France's energy giant Total has stopped buying Iranian crude and Royal Dutch Shell, one of the biggest purchasers of Iranian oil, has cut back sharply, market sources told Reuters.

According to Reuters estimates, Tupras of Turkey was the biggest European customer for Iranian oil in 2011, taking about 200,000 b/d, followed by Total (100,000 b/d), Shell (100,000 b/d), Hellenic of Greece (80,000 b/d) and Cepsa of Spain (70,000 b/d).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17089953

Nigeria facing Strike

Nigeria faces mass strike and protests over discontinued state fuel subsidy

Thousands expected to march through streets of Lagos and Abuja after petrol pump prices more than double overnight

Nigerian petrol attendants serve customers ahead of a nationwide strike over cuts in state fuel subsidy. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP

The timing could hardly have been worse. Already grappling with a string of attacks by a violent Islamist group in recent weeks, Nigeria's government now faces an indefinite mass strike and protests that threaten to shut down the country.

Thousands in Africa's most populous nation have poured onto the streets since the government announced on 1 January that it would discontinue a state fuel subsidy programme, which has kept fuel cheap for decades – but diverted valuable funds needed to invest in infrastructure for Nigeria's booming population.

Overnight, petrol pump prices in Africa's largest oil-producing country more than doubled to about $1 per litre.

With the fuel subsidy eating into a quarter of the annual budget, the government says it will save £4.2bn annually to invest in underperforming refineries that have forced Nigeria to import its own oil once it has been refined.

Seun Kuti, the son of afrobeat musician and vocal anti-government critic Fela Kuti, said he would lead supporters through the choked streets of Lagos on Monday.

"I'm not talking economics here, I'm just talking common sense," he said, as he handed out flyers to students, labourers and market workers who planned to attend the rally. "You cannot charge $1 a litre when the [majority of the] population lives on less than a dollar a day."

Defying a court injunction that banned the strikes because they are unrelated to a labour dispute, leaders of the country's largest trade union asked more than 2 million members to begin an "indefinite" strike on Monday, which could paralyse road and air traffic and shut down power grids.

Armoured police vehicles – many already in place after sectarian bombings killed dozens across the country in recent weeks – fanned out across the capital, Abuja, and other major cities ahead of the strikes.

Security sources say 15,000 police will be deployed in the capital, Abuja, on Monday.

President Goodluck Jonathan attempted to quell the growing public discontent in a special televised address late on Saturday. "I personally feel pained to see the sharp increase in transport fares and the prices of goods and services. If I were in your shoes at this moment, I probably would have reacted in the same way," he said, before announcing a 25% pay cut for cabinet ministers.

His administration argues that the subsidy hands over billions of dollars annually to a cartel of fuel importers, while dampening appetite for private investment in Nigeria's under-performing refineries.

"I understand fully well that deregulation is not a magic formula that will address every economic challenge, but it provides a good entry point for transforming the economy," the president said.

Jonathan, who took office in May last year, has struggled to win over weary Nigerians who have rarely benefited from the nation's two million barrel-per-day oil industry. The president's belated address to the nation has been largely drowned out by a storm of debate across radio and TV shows.

Calls from Nigerians with access to Facebook and Twitter accounts – a minority in a country where 70% live on less than $2 a day — for sit-in movements similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States have gained steady momentum in major urban centres.

But the debate has spawned vocal critics on either side of the divide. Student Onyewu Ahubi asked: "Where were these protestors when education funding was being cut? Is it only because they can't fill up their big cars now they are protesting?" He said protests were lacklustre in the largely rural state of Benue, where pump prices routinely outstrip those in urban centres.

The planned shutdown comes amid a state of emergency declared in the several northern states after the violent Islamist group Boko Haram stepped up a long-simmering insurgency when it attacked four churches simultaneously on Christmas day. The group has killed at least 40 people in the past two weeks, threatening to ignite a sectarian civil conflict.

Bismarke Rewane, a former economic advisor to the President said, the government lacked credibility among Nigerians. "We have a political and sectarian crisis both looming at the same time. Even if the strike is called off by labour unions, I don't think the protests will go away. Right now people are united because of the common pain," he added.