09-12-07

Major crude producer Iran has completely stopped carrying out its oil transactions in dollars, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said, labelling the greenback an "unreliable" currency.
"At the moment, selling oil in dollars has been completely halted, in line with the policy of selling crude in non-dollar currencies," Nozari was quoted as saying. "The dollar is an unreliable currency, considering its devaluation and the oil exporters' losses," he added.

Iran has massively reduced its dependence on the dollar over the past year in the face of US pressures on its financial system and the fall in the dollar. Nozari did not specify in which currencies Iran was now being paid. In the past, officials have said most oil income was in euros, with a significant percentage in yen.
Japan, which purchases 20 % of Iran's crude oil, has recently agreed to pay for the crude oil in yen, officials have said. The UAE dirham has also been mooted as a possible payment currency.

Iran has in the past months been whittling down the proportion of dollars in its oil revenue. Officials in October said that dollars accounted for only 15 % of payments and predicted the amount would fall to zero.
Iran has reduced its dollar assets held in foreign banks and urged OPEC to take collective action to price oil in other currencies such as the euro, instead of the US currency which is used across the world at present. The fall of the dollar, which has weakened considerably against the euro and other currencies in the past 12 months, has affected the revenues of OPEC members because most of them price and sell their oil exports in the US currency.

Source: www.tehrantimes.com