The Guardian: US lobbying scuppers Shell sale to Iran
Terry Macalister
Thursday May 5, 2005
Shell appears to have bowed to American pressure and backed out of a $4.4bn (£2.3bn) plan to sell a chemical business to Iran, for fear of damaging its extensive US interests.
The oil group had been in final talks with Iran’s National Petrochemical Company about Basell – the world’s largest producer of plastic polypropylene, which is owned 50-50 by Shell and Germany’s BASF.
The Iranians said yesterday that their planned purchase had been blocked, just 24 hours after the country vowed to push ahead with its nuclear activities. “Although NPC won all aspects of the Basell tender, due to US pressures we are unofficially told Iran cannot buy Basell,” said Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, managing director of NPC, in an interview with the ISNA news agency in Tehran. The sale of the chemical operation is an important part of a Shell strategy to dispose of up to $15bn worth of assets as it restructures following the oil reserves scandal last year. read more
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