swaps with its neighbors because it was dissatisfied with the formula it was using for the swaps. Last week, it announced it is resuming swaps. It didn’t say what changes have been made. Under swaps, Iran gets crude in its northern provinces and sells off crude produced near the Persian Gulf on the accounts of its northern neighbors. Iran this avoids having to build more pipelines to move crude to its heavy population centers in the north. Its neighbors similarly are able to offload crude without long pipelines.
