New U.S. sanctions against Iran will not affect the Shah Deniz project

The U.S. Congress is preparing a new package of economic sanctions against Iran, involving the introduction into  a "black list"  the mining and construction sectors of Iran,  its  aim is to completely block the export of Iranian oil to 2015, said the  information of the White House.

The  U.S. sanctions  adopted last year have led to reduction by two times  the delivery of the  Iranian oil supplies abroad, and in June, Washington imposed additional sanctions against Iran to prevent developing nuclear weapons by Tehran.

According to the draft laws, sanctions will be subject to financial institutions that buy or sell Iranian rial and having accounts in that currency. "While the rial has lost half of the cost because of our comprehensive sanctions since the beginning of 2012, their first target was the trade itself in that currency,"  noted in the same message.

Also the goal of the new sanctions became the delivery to Iran of goods and services associated with the Iranian automotive industry - the production of cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles. Sanctions will be applied even  in case of providing material support for those Iranians, against which  restriction have been applied. 

An exception is made for a number of Iranian financial institutions and activities that relate to the project pipeline to supply gas from the Shah Deniz (Azerbaijan) to Europe and Turkey. (In this project, the Iranian state-owned company has 10%.)

Earlier, U.S. Undersecretary of State, Wendy Sherman, said that international sanctions against Iran effectively weaken the economy of the Islamic Republic, and monthly  deprive it from $ 3 billion to $ 5 billion.-02D-