Iran shrugs off latest EU oil embargo, but experts see serious effect

07/01/12: Al Jazeera reports Iran’s oil minister and central bank governor have promised that the country’s economy will easily survive as a new European Union oil embargo takes effect.  “The sanctions have had no effect on Iran and will have none,” Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Sunday.  “These sanctions have existed for many years and nothing has happened, and one should not anticipate anything new.”  But oil market observers and analysts say that the embargo, coupled with US financial sanctions ramped up on Thursday, will increasingly gut Iran’s vital oil exports.  The International Energy Agency says Iran’s crude exports in May appeared to have slipped to 1.5 million barrels per day as the market braced for the embargo, well below the 2.1 to 2.2 million barrels Iran insists it continues to sell abroad.