TEHRAN: Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi heads to China on Wednesday seeking new investments in the country’s energy sector, including funding for new refineries, a report said on Tuesday.
The oil ministry’s news agency Shana reported that Beijing has expressed its desire to invest in the refining sector, an area where Iran is still not self-reliant.
In its drive to tighten sanctions against Iran, the United States has targeted its energy and downstream oil sector in particular, given that Tehran is OPEC’s second largest crude exporter but still imports around 40 percent of its gasoline requirements.
In recent years Beijing has emerged as Iran’s main economic partner, filling the gaps in the country’s energy sector left by Western firms forced out by international sanctions.
China is already investing 40 billion dollars in Iran’s oil and gas industry, deputy oil minister Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi said on Saturday.
China backed the fourth set of UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear ambition, but Beijing has consistently urged the world powers to resolve the crisis diplomatically.
On Friday, it opposed the latest unilateral sanctions on Iran imposed by the European Union, which are also designed to strike at the vital energy sector, as well as its banking and transport segments.
A senior US lawmaker meanwhile called for imposing sanctions on China and Russia too for investing in Iran’s energy sector.
"It’s time to implement our sanctions laws and demonstrate to Russia and China that there are consequences for abetting Tehran and flouting US sanctions," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.
Ros-Lehtinen, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said firms run by the Russian and Chinese governments had invested "huge sums" in Iran’s energy sector, "effectively bankrolling" Tehran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme and its backing of Islamist groups.
"Russia and China appear determined to continue to facilitate Iran’s dangerous policies. This must not be allowed to continue without serious repercussions," she said.
Her comments came as a top US State Department official, Robert Einhorn, was on a trip to Asia set to include a stop in Beijing to press China to fully enforce sanctions on Iran.
