Business | Oil & Gas

Iranian oil exchange could trade in roubles

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, may use the Russian rouble in trading on its new oil exchange, the country's ambassador to Moscow said.

  • Bloomberg
  • Published: 01:26 February 17, 2008
  • Gulf News

Moscow: Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, may use the Russian rouble in trading on its new oil exchange, the country's ambassador to Moscow said.

"Big energy producers like Iran and Russia should try to free the world of dollar slavery,'' Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari said on Moscow's Ekho Moskvy radio station on Saturday.

The two nations already cooperate in nuclear energy and may start closer coordination of natural-gas production. Russia holds the world's largest gas reserves, followed by Iran, and together they produce of almost a fifth of the world's oil. The two share the goal of finding alternatives to a weakened dollar.

Iran plans to trade oil in more currencies than in its own rial to offer diversity, the ambassador said. The exchange will open today, the country's official IRNA news service said last week.

"I don't think it would have any impact on the oil market at all,'' said Kevin Norrish, an oil markets analyst at Barclays Capital in London. "I think it's more political than related to oil market prices or dynamics.''

The rouble should be used as a "regional reserve currency,'' Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said earlier today in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Medvedev, who is also chairman of Russian gas exporter Gazprom, is the front-runner to replace President Vladimir Putin.

"The role of key reserve currencies is being reconsidered. We must take advantage of this,'' Medvedev said. Russia and other natural-gas producing countries should also form a group to coordinate production and sales of the fuel "as soon as possible,'' Ansari said.

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