Reuters: Oil major BP has ceased supplying jet fuel to Iran Air at Germany’s Hamburg airport, both parties confirmed on Tuesday.
By Michael Hogan and Emma Farge
HAMBURG/LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) – Oil major BP has ceased supplying jet fuel to Iran Air at Germany’s Hamburg airport, both parties confirmed on Tuesday.
Two Iran Air aircraft were unable to refuel at the airport earlier this month and had to be diverted.
“We can confirm the contract finished at the end of June,” sad a BP spokesman, without giving a reason. She declined to comment on whether BP has ended all contracts with the Iranian flagship carrier.
The confirmation follows reports that Iranian aircraft have been denied fuel in Germany, Britain and a Gulf Arab state as a result of the latest set of U.S. sanctions designed to heap pressure on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme.
This was later denied by an Iranian official.
Iran Air’s Germany manager Mohammad Reza Rajabi told Reuters he expected a new fuel agreement to be signed with a supplier in Hamburg “within a few days”.
He declined to name the new supplier, adding that negotiations were underway.
Planes at other European airports are being fuelled normally, he said.
“We do not have problems in other European airports, only there (Hamburg)…I think it will be a normal situation by next week.”
Some aircraft which had not refuelled at Hamburg have been diverted to Frankfurt and Vienna, he said.
Rival supplier Royal Dutch Shell plans to let its contracts to supply Iran Air with jet fuel lapse in response to the latest U.S. sanctions, an industry source said last week.
(Editing by William Hardy)
