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Indias stake in Iran sanctions
From East Asia Intel, subscription. It isnt just the Russians and the Germans Irans major suppliers who would be hit hard by any success by Washington to use economic sanctions to force Teheran to end its nuclear weapons efforts. The most critical item would be Irans gasoline imports, running at about half its consumption. And India supplies about 15 percent of that market totaling some $4.5 billion a year and rising rapidly despite the Mullahs public declarations to restrain it. In fact, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly announced Iran might face rationing from September after the Majlis voted only a six-month appropriation for imports. The peasants depend upon the $0.36/gallon gas to keep them happy. Start rationing it, and you get a pi$$ed-off populace, with the MMs winding up on lamp posts or in Switzerland. Although Iran is the worlds third or fourth largest crude oil exporter, years of mismanagement, the effect of the U.S. unilateral sanctions and a sharply rising consumption pattern have reduced its refining capacity to cope with demand. Gasoline imports now amount to 10 percent of its crude oil export revenues. Because of the low subsidized price of gasoline some estimate that 20 percent of imports are smuggled out to neighboring countries, even including war-torn Iraq. The gasoline imports are critical, not only for motorists but for the truck transport, which carries Irans imports inland from the Persian Gulf ports. Iran is, for example, deficit in its stable grain, rice. About a quarter of Irans gas imports come from other Persian Gulf producers and smaller amounts come from as far away as China and Brazil cargo on incoming tankers loading up with crude. India has been toying with the possibility of a natural gas pipeline from Iran, which would help meet its own growing energy needs, with 70 percent of oil now being imported. Washington has publicly condemned the project with both New Delhi and Islamabad it would have to cross Indias feuding partner, Pakistan publicly saying they would go ahead. But even Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said publicly financing for such a huge project might not be available if it faced U.S. opposition. Meanwhile, Reliance Industries Ltd. has been pumping out product for Iran from its huge refinery near Mumbai [Bombay], one of the largest in the world. In the face of opposition from Indias monopoly state-owned oil company, the Ambani family built the $3.4 billion refinery six years ago as its cornerstone in an effort to create a privately owned Indian integrated oil company against the opposition of Indias monopolistic state-owned company. The Ambanis, among the worlds richest industrialists, carry great weight in Indias complicated political scene. It would sure benefit the whole world if the MMs were toppled from power. The middle east could really take off. Only problem is that some other nutcase would take over the helm. Posted by: Alaska Paul 2006-05-11 |
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