Germany resumed petroleum imports from Iran in March: Data
Germany resumed its petroleum imports from Iran after five years earlier this year despite a continued regime of American sanctions that bans any trade of energy products with Iran.
Data cited in a report by IRNA showed that Germany had taken delivery of a large petroleum shipment from Iran in March.
The report cited data from the European Union’s statistics agency the Eurostat which showed the shipment imported by Germany had contained nearly 70,000 metric tons of Iranian crude oil or petroleum products.
Germany halted imports of crude oil or petroleum products from Iran after taking delivery of a 10,000-mt shipment in October 2018 and after the US withdrew from an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program and imposed sanctions on the country’s oil exports.
Eurostat figures showed that total petroleum imports from Iran by EU countries this year have reached 66,884 tons with Germany and Bulgaria being the only two buyers.
The figures showed that EU’s petroleum imports from Iran had reached 4,181 tons in 2022.
The figures indicate that EU states are becoming increasingly reluctant to comply with US sanctions on Iran mainly because of a crunch in the international energy markets that has been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine.
That comes as some EU states have ignored Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine war by continuing to import crude oil and gas from the country.