Eni CEO: Italy can cope with EU ban on Iran crude
By ALEX DELMAR-MORGAN
Italy could cope with a potential European Union ban on Iranian crude imports, the top executive of Italian oil major Eni said Thursday, but added that oil payments from the Islamic republic were more of a concern if an embargo was imposed.
"Our refineries would be able to cope with this issue," Eni chief executive officer Paolo Scaroni told reporters in Qatar's capital.
The EU is mulling an oil embargo against Iran as a sanction against the country's nuclear program, fueling speculation that European countries that import Iranian crude are making contingency plans.
Some of Europe's most vulnerable economies, namely Greece, Italy and Spain, are among the largest importers of Iranian crude. Refiners in these countries are likely to struggle to find enough crude to replace the Iranian barrels, and will end up having to pay more for a higher quality oil, which may ultimately raise fuel prices for consumers, industry executives, traders and analysts told Dow Jones Newswires last week.
Scaroni said Eni was still owed nearly $2 billion by National Iranian Oil Co., or NIOC, in crude shipments. Eni is about 30% owned by the Italian government.
Iran is paying off Eni in crude cargoes for previous work undertaken by the Italian oil major in the Islamic republic. Scaroni said he hoped any EU ban on buying Iranian crude would still allow Italy to receive oil payments from Iran.
"We are a little bit more worried about the payments of crude that NIOC are making to us for our previous activities," he said. "We feel that this will be exempt from any ban. We feel there is a difference between importing crude and receiving crude."
He added that the Milan bourse-listed oil and gas company would comply with any decision by the EU to ban Iranian oil.
Scaroni said Eni's oil and gas output in Libya presently is 200,000 bpd of oil equivalent, down from pre-war levels of 280,000 bpd.
Dow Jones Newswires
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