World's largest oil trader flouts Iran sanctions

[No Elephants]

World's largest oil trader flouts Iran sanctions

By Luke Pachymuthu, Randy Fabi and Chen Aizhu, Reuters

SINGAPORE/BEIJING - Vitol, the world's largest oil trader, is buying and selling Iranian fuel oil, undermining Western efforts to choke the flow of petrodollars to Tehran and put pressure on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

Vitol last month bought 2 million barrels of fuel oil, used for power generation, from Iran and offered it to Chinese traders, Reuters established in interviews with 10 oil trading, industry and shipping sources in Southeast Asia, China and the Middle East. A spokesman for Vitol declined to comment.

Swiss-based Vitol is not obliged to comply with a ban imposed in July by the European Union on trading oil with Iran because Switzerland decided not to match EU and U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

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Vitol has said previously it is in compliance with sanctions against Iran, but has declined to say whether or not it would follow the strict EU regulations rather than Switzerland's.

Vitol last year earned record revenue of $297 billion, a near-five-fold increase since 2004. It does not reveal profits.

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lots, lots more http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14109652-worlds-largest-oil-trader-flouts-iran-sanctions?lite

Swiss exceptionalism?

[Enthusiast]

1. We better bomb bomb bomb Iran!

I kid. :hide: