U.S. Refiners Seek OK to Buy Iranian Oil

The Treasury Department said Friday that applications to import Iranian crude oil into the United States are being considered but none were yet approved.

“We are still at a point where we have several applications but no licenses have been granted,” a Treasury official said.

But oil industry sources said Coastal Corp. and Chevron Corp. are close to receiving approval to bring in Iranian oil.

San Francisco-based Chevron said that it was negotiating to buy oil from Iran but that it had not put in a request for an import license.

The oil company said details of the deal, such as volume, where and when the crude would be delivered, need to be worked out with National Iranian Oil Co., the state-owned oil exporting group.

Coastal officials declined to comment.

Industry sources said Coastal planned to bring Iranian crude into its refinery on Aruba in the Caribbean and to its refinery in Corpus Christi, Tex.

The Houston company would not need U.S. permission to ship crude to Aruba, which is outside U.S. jurisdiction.

In 1987, the United States banned Iranian oil imports in response to attacks on Persian Gulf shipping during Iran’s 1980-88 war with Iraq.

Late last year, the Bush Administration partially lifted the ban, but it stipulated that oil payments should go into a special account in the Hague, Netherlands, to settle a payment dispute over Iran’s takeover of American assets in 1979.

The U.S.-Iran Claims Tribunal in the Hague is still sifting thousands of legal claims.

Industry analysts said Coastal’s negotiations with Iran are an effort to replace Iraqi crude, which is a comparable grade of oil.

Iraq is barred by U.N. sanctions from selling its oil to the world market. Before the Persian Gulf War, Iraq was a major supplier of oil to Coastal.