(ICIS) -- The US said on Monday that it was broadening sanctions against Iran to pressure the Tehran regime to end its suspected nuclear weapons programme, including a new US boycott of foreign firms doing business with Iranian petrochemicals entities. Under the sanctions announced by the White House and State Department, non-US firms that do business with the Iranian petrochemicals sector would be subject to unspecified penalties and possibly barred from doing business with the US.
US companies have long been barred from doing business with Iran. Successive US administrations have been steadily broadening sanctions against the Tehran government in an effort to halt its suspected nuclear weapons programme.
The new sanctions announced on Monday come in the wake of findings issued earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Tehran was advancing steps to build nuclear weapons.
In a statement from the White House, President Barack Obama said that the US was taking additional steps, in cooperation with Canada and the UK, ⌠to further isolate and penalise Iran for its refusal to live up to its international obligations regarding its nuclear programme. ⌠New sanctions target for the first time Iran's petrochemical sector, Obama said, ⌠prohibiting the provision of goods, services and technology to this sector. Obama said that the US would impose unspecified penalties ⌠against any person or entity that engages in such activity with the Iranian petrochemicals industry.
The sanctions announced on Monday also expand earlier provisions designed to impede and perhaps cripple Iran's oil and natural gas sectors.
Perspectives of development of the polymers markets, pricing issues and other important aspects will be discussed at The Polymers Summit-2011, which will be held in Moscow on November 30, 2011 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. The Summit is organized by MRC with the support of ICIS. The main idea of the Summit is to find a "the golden mean" between producers and converters. When producers receive exactly such margin of production, which helps them to invest in production expansion in order to substitute polymers imports, and the converters receive such price of feedstock that helps them to compete imported finished products. The Summit site gives an access to the live video of the Summit, speakers' presentations, as well as opportunities to ask questions or make appointments to any Summit partcipant.