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Minister says UAE not planning to divert oil exports to Europe

23 April 2012 07:52 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Konul Jafarli - APA. The United Arab Emiratesâ€™ Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli says Abu Dhabi has no plans to divert its oil exports to Europe, APA reports quoting Fars news agency.

"Our oil goes east, that’s our national market. We have our partners -- Total, ExxonMobil, Shell, BP -- they also take the oil to the East. So the formula is more favoring the East," al-Hamli said on Friday, Reuters reports.

"We have been consistent for the last five months. We are building up capacity, and that is a long-term project. This is a continuous process, that capacity does not come overnight,â€ he said in answer to a question whether the UAE would increase output.

â€œFrom our side as suppliers we believe the market is well supplied, there is no shortage of oil, but we have been living with these levels of oil prices," al-Hamli added.

On January 23, EU foreign ministers agreed to impose new sanctions on Iran which included a ban on purchasing oil from the country and a freeze on the assets of Iran’s Central Bank within the bloc.

The sanctions are scheduled to become fully effective on July 1, 2012.

In a move to counter the EUâ€™s hostile measures against Iran, Tehran decided to cut its crude exports to certain European countries and has already halted oil sales to some of them.

Crude prices reached a peak as a result of Iran’s countersanctions, and gasoline prices in the US and UK hit record highs.