Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug.20/ Trend F.Karimov/
Masoud Mirkazemi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's energy committee who served as the oil minister for 1.5 years during the second term of presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has disclosed a $2.8 billion case of fraud in the Oil Ministry, Mehr news agency reported.
On August 19, Mirkazemi said that Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) may be involved in a fraud case, which was related oil swap.
Results of investigation made by the Supreme Audit Court, the National Iranian Oil Company, the Intelligence Ministry, and the State Inspectorate Organization will be announced next week.
NICO holds 10-percent share in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas field project.
In 2010, Iran stopped the swap of crude oil from its northern neighbors at Neka port after 13 years.
Iran had signed deals with Select Energy Trading, Dragon Oil of the UAE, Vitol of Switzerland, and Caspian Oil Development of Ireland, to swap crude oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
Mehr quoted Mirkazemi as saying that three years after stopping crude oil swap, Caspian Oil Development has filed a complaint against Naftiran Intertrade Company (NICO) for $100,000 compensation due to unilateral cancelation of its deal.
NICO is a subsidiary of the National Iranian Oil Company and was tasked with crude oil swap operations.
Mirkazemi also said that during swap processes, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company had ordered for decreasing the national oil output by 300,000 barrels per day, referring to "problems in sales" as the main reason, but he found out later that 150,000 barrels of oil had been sold by European firms to an Iranian company.
That was not a kind of swap, because the same amount of oil had not been delivered to European firms at Kharg port, in south of the country.
The production fall incurred huge losses to the country, Mirkazemi said, adding that the NIOC had estimated to earn 20 cents per barrels through swapping crude oil. But, in fact, customer should have paid $5-7 per barrels as a swapping cost.
According to him, the European firms were asked to pay $5 as swapping cost, but they did not accept the deal.
The issue led to a loss of $120 million, Mirkazemi said. A person dubbed B-Z has reportedly sold $2.8 billion worth of oil products and gas condensates in collusion with NICO and some other individuals inside the country.
Iranian media had revealed that Babak Zanjani, the Iranian trader - who owns several companies in East Asia - as the broker of Iranian crude oil.
However, Zanjani dismissed the issue, saying that he was just transacted oil products, not crude oil. The U.S. and the EU have placed Zanjani on the list of sanctioned Iranians.
Mirkazemi said that results of investigations about the $2.8-billion fraud case will be announced to the parliament next week after receiving comments of the oil minister in this regard.
During the period of investigations, it was found that the money has not yet come back to the country. If it is proved to be true, the case will be sent to the judiciary system, Mirkazemi said.
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