Iranian Oil Exchange
                 …Declaration of War?

Need for oil bourse highlighted
Press TV

A top bourse official has said that the Bourse Organization has already issued the required permits for the establishment of an oil bourse.

Head of the Bourse Organization and Tehran Stock Exchange, Ali Salehabadi, added he had seriously followed up the issue despite the fact that his organization is not responsible for setting up the country's oil stock exchange.

The High Council of Bourse has already notified the Oil Ministry of its approval of the proposal to establish the oil bourse, Mehr news agency quoted him as saying.

"Given the importance of the formation of the oil bourse, particularly for the current [President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] administration, we have been following up the case with all means, although we are only duty-bound to set the preliminary conditions for the task," he said.

Salehabadi said that a company has been established in Kish Free Trade Zone under the title 'the Oil Bourse', adding that 80 percent of its shares belong to the Oil Ministry's Retirees Fund.

"We have proposed to the Oil Ministry to set up the oil stock exchange within the framework of this company the shares of which will be auctioned later," he said, noting that other organizations should be assigned with the executive tasks associated with the project.

The establishment of the oil bourse was delegated to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance last year.

Experts say the success of an Iranian oil bourse would largely depend on cooperation on the part of other OPEC members as well as a much-needed consensus with Arab Persian Gulf states.

EB/BGH