Iran rejects oil proposal of Hungary

A National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC ) official, while pointing to MOL Group’s request to import light crude from Iran, said the country is not ready to deploy the oil product to the Hungarian company, Mehr News Agency reports.

Executive Director for International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Seyed Mohsen Ghamsari pointed to the willingness of Hungary’s MOL to buy Iran’s light oil saying “at the present time, negotiations with the European firm are underway.”

“MOL has made a bid to purchase 30 to 40 thousand barrels of light crude oil from Iran,” noted the official adding “talks are being conducted with the European oil company though Iran is not ready to ship light crude to Hungary at the moment.”

Ghamsari outlined certain East European states as new customers of Iran’s oil in the post-sanction era reiterating “before sanctions were imposed against the country, France, Britain, Spain and Italy were traditional customers of the Iranian crude while a number of East European countries have made proposals to purchase oil from Iran in the post-JCPOA period.”

Over the past few weeks, several negotiations have been held with foreign oil companies to export crude to East European companies as the first cargo sold to Russia’s Lukoil has been shipped to a Romanian refinery.

In addition to Romania, numerous oil companies from Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia as well as Serbia have launched talks with Iran for singing spot or long-term contracts.