Companies around the world are preparing to renew their commercial ties with Iran, according to an Israeli defence official.
The official told Haaretz that a large chunk of the resulting new funds would be used to fund Iran’s terrorism projects around the world: “There will be a removal of sanctions, the economy will get a serious boost and there will be more money for the Iranian emissaries who are working not only against us. And it will be a regime for which the sanctions have been lifted and that has become an international player that continues to encourage terrorism… Will it continue to fund Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad? And now with more money? That is what we face.”
He added that the country’s economy is expected to receive a boost of tens of billions of dollars within a relatively short time.
Meanwhile, an Israeli company that develops maritime tracking technology has claimed that Iran has been hiding 50 million of barrels of crude oil on tankers in the Arabian Gulf.
This is a much larger amount than previously estimated. The Bank of America has estimated Iran is holding 30 million barrels, while the US news broadcaster CNBC put the number at 40 million.
“The Iranians are taking huge, 280m-long ships and filling them with oil, to sit at sea and wait. Because the sanctions allow for production of only three million barrels a day, they began storing the remainder,” Ami Daniel, Windward founder and cochairman, told TheMarker.
“Oil tankers have been sitting in the Gulf for anywhere between three and six months, just waiting for orders.”
The Islamic Republic, which has the world’s largest gas reserves and fourth-largest oil reserves, has plans to increase its oil production capacity to about 5 million barrels a day by the end of the decade.
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