June 24, 2009

by Jerry Gordon, The Iconoclast, June 23, 2009

It took graphic videos of Baseji militia killing an Iranian young woman protester,“Neda”, to bring about the long delayed Congressional sanctions against Iranian refined gasoline and diesel fuel suppliers. Today the House Appropriation Committee passed a bi-partisan amendment to the 2010 State-Foreign Operations appropriations measure co-sponsored by Reps. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Brad Sherman (D-CA). The Amendment would prevent the U.S. Export-Import Bank from providing credit guarantees to firms that currently export refined gasoline and diesel fuel to Iran. As we have posted, Iran obtains more than 2/5ths of its gasoiline and diesel fuel deliveries from foreign refiners. Among the companies heavily involved in the Iran gasoline trade are the Swiss firm Vitol, the Swiss/Dutch firm Trafigura, the French firm Total, the Swiss firm Glencore, British Petroleum, and the Indian firm Reliance.

Rep. Kirk, whom we interviewed in the NER last fall, commented in a news release:

We know that Iran ’s greatest weakness remains its economic dependence on foreign gasoline. While students are murdered in the streets of Tehran , we should not use taxpayer money to bolster the Iranian economy.

The news release goes on to note:

In 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved two separate loan guarantees totaling $900 million to expand the largest refinery owned by Reliance, which provides roughly one-third of Iran ’s daily import of gasoline.

The text of the amendment appears below:

Limitation on the Use of Funds by the Export-Import Bank Related to Iran.


None of the funds made available in Title VI under the headings “Program Account” and “Subsidy Appropriation” may be used by the Export-Import Bank of the United States to guarantee, insure, or extend credit for any project controlled by an energy producer or refiner that provides the Islamic Republic of Iran with significant refined petroleum resources, that materially contributes to Iran’s capability to import refined petroleum resources, or that allows Iran to maintain or expand, in any material respect, its domestic production of refined petroleum resources, including any assistance in refinery construction, modernization, or repair.

We noted in a post in March several Congressmen, including Reps. Kirk and Sherman who had requested an investigation into one of the refiners, Vitol:

Three years ago we advocated support of a moratorium against off shore deliveries of refined gasoline products to Iran. We considered it a powerful sanction to thwart nuclear weapons development - now a fait accompli, given revelations about enough enriched uranium in Iran by Joint Chief Head, Adm. Mullin, this weekend on a national news interview program. Recently , several Members of Congress sent a letter requesting an investigation of a US DOE contract with the leading refiner of Iran’s gas and diesel fuel-Dutch Swiss oil trader and refiner, Vitol. The lawmakers are objecting to buying oil from Vitol for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, because of its recent criminal involvement in the Iraq Food for Oil Scandal. But that is one of two investigations involving Vitol, the other is a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigation of Vitol’s enormous speculative profit taking in last summer’s energy commodity futures oil bubble.

President Obama called the horrific and brutal oppression of protesters in Iran “appalling and outrageous” in today’s White House Press Conference. He could back this up by suggesting that the House Appropriations Committee Iran gasoline sanctions measure be given expedited treatment so that it ultimately becomes law. Only then will some measure of economic reality dawn on the Mullahs and their puppet President Ahmadinejad and contribute to a collapse of the hated Islamic Republic.