Bloomberg, CNN, RIANovosti, 30 Jan 2012.

After the European Union foreign ministers agreed to ban oil imports from Iran starting July 1 as part of measures to ratchet up the pressure on the Iranian nuclear program, the Iran's oil minister said on Sunday that oil sales to "some countries" would be halted soon.

"Iran has a market for its oil exports even with cuts [in sales] to Europe and will face no problem in this regard," he told. An Iranian member of parliament also warned the country will “certainly close the Strait of Hormuz,” the Persian Gulf passageway for about 20 percent of globally traded oil, if sanctions “interrupt” its oil exports. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait ship crude and liquefied natural gas through the strait.

According to the decision taken, the EU will freeze assets of the Iranian central bank in Europe as well as of eight other entities, and ban the trade in gold, precious metals, diamonds and petrochemical products from Iran, besides ban on the export of equipment and technology for the Iranian petrochemical industry.

“Today’s decisions target the sources of the finance for the nuclear program, complementing already existing sanctions”, the EU said today in Brussels. The move came after the Islamic Republic announced earlier this month that it had launched a nuclear enrichment program at a well-protected underground facility near the holy Shia city of Qom.

The Iranian parliament failed to pass a proposed law over the weekend that would have banned oil exports to the European Union, apparently because of differences between the legislative body and the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejhad. The export ban would have deprived European states in the time in which they need to find substitute sources of oil, and would probably have hit the economically weak countries of southern Europe.

On the other hand, the head of the Iran’s state oil company said that an EU embargo on oil imports from Iran may push world oil prices to $150 per barrel. And even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that sanctions on Iran could push oil prices up 20-30 percent, to $140 per barrel, unless alternative supplies from developing countries came on line.