The Iran Dilemma: From the Energy-Money-Market Perspective

"My guess is that on March 24th nothing will be done. Both the Iranians and Americans are pointing at the end of March, and my guess is that there will be enough agreement that they will be able to pull something together, but it will be very broad -- and even that's not certain."
"You might see some additional cash flows around restricted Iranian assets ... but in my experience, you are not going to see any real relief on sanctions for at least six months after a deal is done."
Richard Nephew, program director, economic statecraft, sanctions and energy markets, Columbia Centre on Global Energy Policy

"A chance that we get a framework agreement or a 'political understanding' is high -- around 70%."
"[Still significant gaps] Most importantly,U.S. sanctions relief, which Iranians demand upfront, and I just don't think the U.S. is going to go there."
"[A deal] would place modest downward pressure on the oil price [but there] is a lot of geopolitical momentum on both sides to make it harder to walk back."
Cliff Cupchan, chairman, Eurasia, Middle East and North Africa, Eurasia Group

"Iran could increase its oil production between 500,000 to 800,000 bpd within three to six months."
"According to Iran's five-year plan, the country had to invest $255-billion in its energy industry from 2011-2015 [falling short due to international sanctions and a ban on foreign investment]."
Sara Vakhshouri, consultant, Washington

"The big problem is that there are multi-layered sanctions by multiple entities and you cannot just flip a switch and make them go away."
"It's not hard to see how complex this spiderweb is."
Helima Croft, head commodity strategy, RBC Capital Markets

Well, that's the perspective from global money and oil markets, focusing only on the balance  between oil availability and cost, and the release of international funds for investment purposes in one of the world's largest oil-producing countries now constrained in marketing its output and lacking needed release of foreign investments  to upgrade its creaking infrastructure. 

 

That Tehran is a supporter of Islamist terror, and is itself a terrorist Islamist source is entirely irrelevant to the international money market; they too are constrained by virtue of sanctions.

Neither Iran nor the international investment community are thrilled with those sanctions, interfering with the flow of oil and money. What happens in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya and in Yemen and Iran's role in the confrontation between the split Middle East in its sectarian conflicts is of little interest to those markets. Nor do they much care that the United States hardly knows in which direction to turn first in its entanglements, embarrassments and disappointments.

They could ask an Iranian journalist, once influential in the campaign to elect the current Iranian president, now asking for political asylum in Switzerland his opinion. Amir Hossein Motaghi would tell them that his profession in Iran is a lost cause since he no longer wishes to write only what he is compelled to write, in reflection of the Ayatollahs' perspective on all things Iranian versus the international community.

 

According to his testimony printed in the British Telegraph, the White House is frantic to persuade the other P5+1 members that all should accept Iran's point of view; not a difficult persuasion for China and Russia, but France and Britain might prove a problem. Germany is hugely dependent on Russia for its energy and wouldn't mind a more relaxed energy market, so it's kind of 50X50. 

 

"The U.S. negotiating team is mainly there to speak on Iran's behalf with other members of the 5+1 countries and convince them of a deal", he said. And he should know.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told his country in 2013 that economic sanctions will never force Iran into unwelcome concessions over nuclear development. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, via Associated Press

And to obtain a more fully rounded perspective they could always confer with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who yesterday said "While [world powers] convene to sign this deal, Iran’s proxies in Yemen are conquering large swaths of land in an effort to overtake the Bab al-Mandab straits, so that they can change the balance of power in shipping oil". 

 

The European Union before the sanctions were imposed in 2012, imported 452,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil. Understandably, they are anxious to have those imports resumed, to aid them in their determination to wean themselves away from Russian energy importation. But it is Iran with the most to gain from an agreement, sitting on the world's fourth-largest crude oil and second-largest natural gas reserves.

 

With, unfortunately, its foreign trade and oil exports maimed by sanctions targeting its financial services sector leaving its economy to contract almost 6% as oil revenues dwindled from $93-billion to $33-billion. Even China, India and Japan cut Iranian imports so that they languished last year at their lowest levels in decades. Should an agreement be reached, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh estimates a million barrels per day of Iranian crude could inter the market.

 

Yet it is Iran itself, despite Secretary of State John Kerry's puppyish anxiety to placate and surrender one immovable position of the U.S. after another to please Iran's demands, that balks at delivering to President Barack Obama the 'success' he so bullishly seeks for his departure legacy. Iran's acceptance of the need to send a large portion of its uranium stockpile to Russia has taken a reverse step. 

 

Iran's deputy foreign minister surprised everyone by ruling out that agreement to surrender the stockpile that Iran spent years and billions to amass.

Leaving Mr. Kerry with an undoubted headache of volcanic proportions, and challenging him to come up with some other ways to present to the international community the assurance that  it doesn't really matter, and Iran can keep its enriched nuclear stockpile after all, and the solution to the problem is simply to give Iran whatever it insists upon and trust the word of the Ayatollahs that they have no interest in nuclear arms, as an honourable Islamic country of great humanitarian principles.

Foreign ministers from other world powers joined Secretary of State John Kerry in an effort to reach the outlines of a nuclear accord with Iran by a midnight Tuesday deadline. Credit Pool photo by Brendan Smialowski

"The export of stocks of enriched uranium is not in our program, and we do not intend sending them abroad. There is no question of sending the stocks abroad."

Abbas Araqchi, Iranian nuclear negotiating official