China’s calculus in sanctions deal on Iran: oil

Why have Moscow and Beijing — long opponents of stiffer sanctions on Iran — backed President Barack Obama’s plan for a tighter global stranglehold on Tehran just a day after a breakthrough nuclear-fuel accord brokered by Turkey and Brazil? The predominant reason in China’s case specifically is that Obama is steering clear of its two-way ...

Why have Moscow and Beijing -- long opponents of stiffer sanctions on Iran -- backed President Barack Obama's plan for a tighter global stranglehold on Tehran just a day after a breakthrough nuclear-fuel accord brokered by Turkey and Brazil?

Why have Moscow and Beijing — long opponents of stiffer sanctions on Iran — backed President Barack Obama’s plan for a tighter global stranglehold on Tehran just a day after a breakthrough nuclear-fuel accord brokered by Turkey and Brazil?

The predominant reason in China’s case specifically is that Obama is steering clear of its two-way oil trade with Iran. For Russia, it’s a chance to maintain both its recently tighter relationship with Washington, and its role as an insider-of-sorts with Tehran.

Iran is Beijing’s third-largest foreign supplier of oil, providing some 550,000 barrels a day of crude, or 11% of China’s oil imports. China also is replacing European companies as a supplier of gasoline to Iran, which doesn’t produce enough to meet its needs. BP, Shell and other companies have halted their part in Iran’s imports of about 100,000 barrels — or 4.3 million gallons — of gasoline a day. But Chinaoil and Unipec, among other Chinese companies, have stepped in to make up the difference.

Iran is big business for China’s oil companies. As The Wall Street Journal‘s Shai Oster writes today, the China National Petroleum Corp. has taken over the role of France’s Total in developing the giant South Pars natural gas field. Total stopped working South Pars because of U.S. sanctions launched by the Clinton Administration. Other Chinese companies working in Iran are Sinopec and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corp., known as CNOOC.

It is the same for Russia — trade trumps Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Hence, no realistic sanctions deal can be the tipping point in resolving the western standoff with Iran.

<p> Steve LeVine is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy, a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of The Oil and the Glory. </p>

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