Word: oils
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Iran sits atop mammoth energy reserves -about 136 billion bbl. of oil and some 14 trillion cu m of natural gas. But because its refineries are too few and too old, the country refines just two-thirds of the gas it needs to keep its economy working and its 65 million people lit, driving and heated. The remaining third - about 120,000 bbl. a day - has to be imported...
...former State Department official and now director of Nuclear Nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "They all have bigger markets elsewhere, including in the U.S." Indeed, even talk of a refined-petroleum blockade convinced British Petroleum to halt its exports to Iran last year. Oil analysts believe Reliance has suspended sales to Iran too. (See pictures of terror in Tehran...
...that early talk gave Iran time to prepare for new sanctions. Earlier this year, it began importing far more than it was using. Intelligence consultancy Stratfor noted last week that Iran has probably stockpiled at least three months' worth of gasoline. The National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co. estimates that the country has some 15.7 million bbl. of gasoline - about four months' worth - stockpiled in tankers on land and off its Persian Gulf coast. After BP and Reliance halted exports to Iran, Chinese state-owned oil companies filled the gap, supplying about one-third of Iran's gasoline imports...
...batch of sanctions against Iran would cut, particularly since the U.S. needs Moscow and Beijing as signatories if it wants the initiative to pack a punch. Russia and Iran have shared economic interests, and according to some estimates, China has some $100 billion tied up in Iranian oil and gas reserves. Both countries have been unwilling to rebuke their strategic partner in the past. A watered-down set of sanctions might be disappointing to those, like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who want to "cripple" Iran. But they wouldn't be out of the ordinary; the U.S. has punished countries...
...travel and trade restrictions, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama Administration was investigating how to "broaden and deepen" the measures, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted the menu of potential punishments was a "pretty rich list to pick from" - including the suspension of investments in the Iranian oil and gas industries and tighter restrictions on Iranian banks...