AP: Iran’s new oil minister says he wants the Revolutionary Guard’s economic conglomerate to replace foreign gas and oil companies, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Iran’s oil minister: Replace foreign oil companies
Blast, followed by fire, hits Iran oil pipeline
AP: An explosion struck an oil pipeline in Iran’s oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan early Friday, triggering a blaze that took firefighters hours to put out, news agencies reported.
OPEC to consult if oil prices fall more: Iran
AFP: OPEC ministers will hold consultations if the price of crude oil continues to fall but it is too soon to call for an extraordinary meeting, Iran’s representative to the cartel said on Friday.
Iran’s rich eat ice cream covered in gold as poor struggle to survive
Washington Post: Gold-flecked ice cream wasn’t part of the picture that Shiite Muslim clerics painted during the Iranian Revolution, when they promised to lift the poor by distributing the country’s vast oil income equally across society.
India’s IOC says to make small Iran oil payment soon
Reuters: Indian Oil Corp (IOC) will make a payment to Iran for oil soon, the state-run refiner’s chairman R.S. Butola said on Thursday, after a new mechanism was set up to end a seven-month impasse triggered by U.S. pressure.
Italy ups Iran crude oil imports in May-industry
Reuters: Italy’s imports of crude oil from Iran, one of its main suppliers, spiked in May helping to offset a lack of crude from Libya, data from industry body Unione Petrolifera (UP) showed on Thursday.
Iran to help build houses in Venezuela
AFP: Venezuela has signed a deal with Iran to build over 10,000 homes in three central states of the South American nation in a billion-dollar investment package that signals the two country’s increasingly close ties.
UN rights investigator urges Tehran to grant visit
AFP: The UN’s newly appointed human rights investigator to Iran called Wednesday on Tehran to allow him to visit the country to examine alleged rights violations there.
Companies trading with Iran hidden by U.K.
Bloomberg: The U.K. government is determined to keep secret British companies that applied to sell goods with potential military uses to Iran, saying international banks are under U.S. pressure to drop them as clients.
Iran claims progress speeding nuclear program
Wall Street Journal: Moves by Iran to deploy more-advanced centrifuge machines for the production of nuclear fuel are raising new concerns that Tehran could significantly shorten the time it would need to produce nuclear bombs.
