UK export department offers new support for trading with NIOC

March 5, 2003
The UK export department announced National Iranian Oil Company can trade with UK exporters for contracts for as much as $20 million without previously required complex financing arrangements.

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Mar. 5 -- The UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD) announced National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) can trade with UK exporters for contracts for as much as $20 million without previously required complex financing arrangements.

UK companies selling capital goods or providing services to NIOC will benefit from streamlined procedures, said ECGD, a separate government agency reporting to the UK Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

ECGD Chief Executive Vivian Brown said that the department's previous decision to set up "clean cover" limits with Iran's National Petroleum Co. sparked "considerable interest among exporters and buyers." She added, "With this in mind, I am pleased to confirm the extension of similar arrangements to NIOC, giving our customers a faster, simpler service appropriate to smaller contracts in their dealings with them."

Brown noted that ECGD's normal risk assessment criteria for projects continues to apply.