Iran halts oil sales to France and Britain

Iran has halted its limited oil sales to France and Britain in retaliation for a phased EU ban on Iranian oil that is yet to take full effect, the oil ministry said yesterday.

“Oil sales to British and French companies have ceased,” spokesman Ali Reza Nikzad Rahbar said in a statement on the ministry’s official website. “We have taken steps to deliver our oil to other countries in the place of British and French companies.”

The decision was not expected to have a big impact. France last year bought only 3% of its oil — 58,000 barrels a day — from the Islamic republic, and Britain was believed to be no longer importing Iranian oil. But it was seen as a warning to EU nations that are bigger consumers of Iranian oil.