What Is The Most Dangerous Job in Iran?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
By Phil Flynn
These days it is probably being a nuclear scientist.
Once again an Iranian nuclear scientist was blown to smithereens. Now despite what you might think this had nothing to do a nuclear experiment gone bad, no it really has a lot to do with a bomb mysteriously placed below a Peugeot 405. It seems that nuclear scientists in Iran have some pretty cool cars.
The nuclear scientist worked at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility before he met with his unfortunate demise.
Natanz of course is said to have 8,000 centrifuges in operation and according to reports is one of two facilities that are enriching uranium in the country. The other is the underground facility of Qom that Iran denied ever existed until of course it had been discovered.
In January of 2010 an Iranian university professor and nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed when his car blew up. Then in November 2010, nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was killed in a similar fashion. Kind of make you think of changing professions now does it not. Iran is blaming Israel and the U.S. They are also blaming them for a series of cyber attacks on the computers in their nuclear facilities. Maybe it is an attack or maybe they just have Windows Vista.
OIL MARKET REACTION
This news gave oil a boost where already Iran is looking to try to hang onto their customers and ensure customer loyalty. According to Bloomberg News Iran cut the price of crude supplies loading in February to Asia relative to benchmark levels, quoting an official at National Iranian Oil Co. NIOC lowered Iranian Light exports to a premium of $2.26 a barrel above the average of Dubai and Oman oil, said the official, who asked not to be named, citing company policy. That compares with $4.36 for January.
SUPPLY ISSUES
In Nigeria supply could be cut as Nigeria's two oil workers' unions said that they might totally shut down Nigerian crude production as a nationwide strike over the removal of fuel subsidies in that country are causing allot of pain. Nigeria exports more than two million barrels of light sweet crude oil per day and might be hard to replace if Iran oil is lost.
VOLATILITY CONTINUES
Still oil is subject to the massive mood swings surrounding the progress, or the lack thereof, coming out of Europe. Yesterday all seemed well on the European front as the euro soared and the dollar fell. Of course, that seemed to change as if someone asked if anything was really accomplished.
http://www.sfomag.com/SFODaily/Energy-SFO_Daily__What_Is_The_Most_Dangerous_Job_in_Iran__-sd500.aspx