| The Woodlands, Texas – Huntsman Corporation (NYSE: HUN) today announced that its indirect foreign subsidiaries that have been selling products to third parties located in Iran will discontinue doing so and will exit any contractual arrangements there as expeditiously as legally possible. While such sales have been done in full compliance with U.S. law, it was determined that the small amount of business done there does not justify the reputational risk currently associated with doing business with entities located in Iran, due to the growing international concern over the policies of the current regime there.
 | | | | Whenever I have a little time to kill, I click the tab on my Web browser that takes me to the NYMEX crude oil futures. It’s astounding to think that the same $147 barrel of crude from last July is now, as of Oct. 28, selling for only $54.43 a barrel. But economics aside, I care about this for two reasons: I drive a truck, and this drop in price seems to be the only thing that has effectively put pressure on the oil-revenue-dependent government of Iran.
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| Following the signing of an agreement for $7 billion between Iran’s Oil Ministry and the Khatam al-Anbiya Reconstruction Organization belonging to the elite Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps, informed sources have expressed their concerns that the events that had in the past followed the Passdaran’s intrusion into business activities at the expense of murders, imprisonment of investors, suspension of investments, and the flee of managers would be repeated again, and there would be no body to contain the destructive consequences of the trend.
| | | | On the first day after the president’s fourth nomination to head the Oil Ministry, many Majlis (Iran's Parliament) deputies criticized the choice. But the chairman of the Energy Committee of the Parliament had a different view. Kamal Daneshyar, who unlike his other similar-minded colleagues voted positively for the three previous nominations, also supports the current nominee. In his interview with Rooz, he hopes that the majority of the MPs will confirm the nomination. Here is the interview with the chairman.
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| | The continuing downfall in the trade of stocks at Iran’s Stock Exchange market at an unprecedented rate, particularly after president Ahmadinejad’s remarks on the state of Israel two weeks ago, have lead a number of government economic advisors to propose to the administration that they temporary close Tehran’s Stock Exchange Organization. The implementation of their recommendation, according to sources who have seen the report to the president but did not wish to be named, the proposal to close the Stock Market is recommended, unless something positive alters the course of the stocks trade in Iran in the next few weeks. | | | | | If they allowed us to execute 2 or 3 individuals, Tehran Stock Exchange’s problems would be solved for good,” said president Ahmadinejad at the last cabinet meeting, according to a dismayed Rooz correspondent who spoke with the ministers after the session. At the meeting, cabinet ministers and the participating experts had put forward various solutions to rebounce Tehran’s stock trading that has been sharply dwindling since president Ahmadinejad’s presidential victory in June, and have been taking further hits with several major statement that has come from the presidential palace in the capital | |
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| Pakistan said on Monday it will build the proposed gas pipeline from Iran on its own if India refuses to join the project.
Plans for the 2,600-kilometre pipeline to deliver gas to Pakistan and India from Iran are opposed by the US government, which accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and trying to build a nuclear bomb.
"We would welcome Indian association with this project but if it is not feasible with India, we are going to go ahead with the project in any case," Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman Muhammad Naeem Khan told a briefing.
"This is a project which we need to meet our energy requirements." | | | | | Despite steady earnings from oil exports, Iran has chronic budget deficit problems attributed to poor management and large-scale state subsidies on foodstuffs and petroleum products. The conservative Majlis (parliament) has refused to raise consumer prices ignoring warnings by economists of worsening high inflationary trends. | |
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| | Iranian stocks, which have risen 145 percent since January 2003, fell today on concerns former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be elected president of the nation with the world's No. 2 oil and gas reserves. | | | | It would be a "mistake" for India to go ahead with a project to build a pipeline to carry gas from Iran via Pakistan, a senior US official warned here Thursday.
Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary of state for arms control, said the US was opposed to the project as the Iranian government could use revenues from it to fund its programme for developing weapons of mass destruction and to support terrorism. | |
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| | Two members of Congress say the United States needs to take stronger steps, along with European allies, to pressure Iran to stop its suspected nuclear weapons program. Their proposals, including a potential ban on gasoline shipments to Iran, are contained in a resolution they are introducing in the House of Representatives. | | | | | Norwegian oil company Aker Kvaerner ASA (AKVER.OS) has withdrawn from a consortium hoping to develop phases 15 and 16 of the offshore South Pars gas field, an official with one of Kvaerner's partners said Sunday. | |
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|  Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) officially launched its 1 Gbps symmetric service for the residential market. Approximately 800,000 households, out of a total of 2.2 million households in Hong Kong, are wired to receive the service. The 1 Gbps symmetric service is priced at US$215 per month. | | | |  In a morning stunner, Adobe announced that it will be acquiring Macromedia in an all-stock transaction for approximately $3.4 billion, a move which bumped shares of Macromedia up more than 8 percent in early trading, while Adobe shares sank 11 percent. The new company will be called Adobe Systems, Inc.
There is no word yet on which programs will continue to be supported and/or which programs will be killed but both companies say they are still "planning out the integration with the hope to utilize the best business and product development practices from each other." | |
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| | According to information obtained by the Financial Times Deutschland, one of the prospective buyers, the Iranian petrochemicals group NPC, might have to pay a special bonus on top of the purchase price because of US sanctions against Iran. | | | | | Iran and China are emerging as key and strategic countries for India in its march towards oil security. | |
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| A Sasol group company, African Amines, has illegally exported chemicals to Iran that could be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons.
This emerges from a plea bargain agreement in the Durban Regional Court, struck last November, which appears to have saved the multibillion-rand petrochemical company from international embarrassment. | | | | | Russia and Iran this month will sign an agreement on the return of spent nuclear fuel, paving the way for startup of the country’s first nuclear reactor, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. | |
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| | An explosion which turned out to be a dam blast in southern Iran sent jitters through financial markets amid speculation that the country's only nuclear reactor had come under attack. | | | | | “As a person, I feel alienated from both sides. As an American, I feel we are becoming isolationist. As a middle-easterner, I don’t think we have done enough for the world to see us as anything other than a bunch of terrorists. Americans are better than most other nations in accepting someone from abroad. But they never accept you 100%. Punjab feels almost like Iran.” Fred [Farhad] Ebrahimi, the owner of Denver-based Quark Inc. in an interview with Times News Network. | |
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| | Iran plans to send a team of oil specialists to Venezuela in the coming weeks to help train staff at Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PVZ.YY) and continue looking at oil investments in the Caribbean nation, a government official said. | | | | Iran has contained a fire in its Gachsaran oilfield and expects to restart production today, a top Iranian oil official said.
Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran's Opec governor, said operations had halted temporarily at the weekend after a small explosion and fire occurred in a gas pipeline used for injecting pressure into the oilfield. | |
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| | Turkcell , the leading provider of mobile communications in Turkey, announced today an update on the approval process of its GSM license agreement in Iran. | | | | | India and Iran hope to conclude the agreement for gas supplies through the 4.5 billion dollar pipeline in June this year. | |
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The Heat: Iran's Political Landscape
