The one other firm known to be selling fuel to Iranian airplanes was Total of France. The Iran Times emailed the firm’s Paris headquarters asking if Total would continue to do so. In two responses, the company refused to say whether Total would halt supplies, implying it was continuing to service Iranian aircraft and would continue to do so.
OMV told the Iran Times, “Due to entrepreneurial aspects, OMV has decided to cancel the contract with Iran Air. This contract included refueling at Vienna International Airport only.
All other companies marketing aviation fuel at European airports shut off sales to Iranian airlines last summer and autumn after the US Congress passed new sanctions threatening punitive action against any companies selling refined fuel to Iran.
To get around the boycott, Iranian airlines landing in Europe had taken a short hop after takeoff to another airfield where they could get a full load of fuel from OMV or Total in order to make the flight back to Tehran. The interim stops were understood to be Vienna, where OMV provided fuel, and Cologne, where Total provided fuel. These interim stops added about 90 minutes to the flight time. Iran Air makes scheduled flights to 11 European cities.
Another option would be to fly to Europe with only a partial load of passengers and cargo so that planes could carry enough fuel from Tehran to make the roundtrip flight without refueling.
The purpose of the US sanctions was to deny gasoline to Iran. When the idea of the fuel sanctions was mooted, Iran had to import one-third of its gasoline. Some members of Congress reasoned that a gasoline sanction would bring the Islamic Republic to its knees.
The gasoline sanctions worked remarkably well in the sense that all major and most small firms dealing in gasoline dropped Iran rather than risk punitive action by the United States. The gasoline sanctions were actually a total failure, however, because the Islamic Republic did not bow to US pressures. Instead, Iran converted several of its petrochemical plants to producing gasoline and has been able to supply its domestic market with all its requirements.
The irony is that the US sanctions law does not ban jet fuel sales to Iran. Under the law, passed last June, jet fuel sales of as much as $5 million a year are specifically permitted. That exemption indicates that the congressmen who wrote the legislation thought about crippling Iran’s international flights but decided not to do so. Iran Air in Amsterdam said it purchased far below the $5 million ceiling.
Sanctions approved last summer by the European Union also specifically cite the civilian operations of Iran Air as being allowed
The first European firm to cease selling Iran aviation fuel was BP, which at the time was viewed as a great villain in the United States because of the huge oil spill underway at one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico. It was assumed BP acted to avoid further infuriating the American public.
In July, Q8, a subdivision of the Kuwait Petroleum Corp. that is a major aviation fuel supplier around the world, and Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch giant, declined to renew their contracts with Iran Air. Over subsequent weeks, other firms such as ENI of Italy and StatOil of Norway either severed their contracts or refused to renew them. By October, only Total and OMV were selling fuel to Iranian airlines in Europe.
The Islamic Republic then started to retaliate—albeit very modestly. At Imam Khomeini International Airport, officials refused to fully refuel planes from the only British airline that flies into Tehran, British Midlands International.
BMI said it was still getting some fuel in Tehran, enough to fly out of Tehran to another airport where it could get a full load of jet fuel. But Tehran did not apply the retaliation to other European airlines like Germany’s Lufthansa and Italy’s Alitalia.
Iran has screamed loudly that it is illegal to refuse to supply fuel—so it is doing what it insists is against the law. Furthermore, in Iran, it is the government that has refused to supply fuel. In Europe, it is private companies that have shut the valves. The governments there have nothing to do with it.
There is no international law requiring anyone to sell jet fuel to any party.
In October, Iran confirmed that some non-European jet fuel suppliers had stopped serving Iran Air in Asia as well as in Europe, but it did not identify the firms.
