Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has shrugged off the U.S.-engineered European Union embargoes on the Iranian oil sector, saying that the Islamic Republic is completely prepared to counter the sanctions.

'Iran's oil has its own markets, and, to counter the sanctions, all potential options have been worked out by the government,' Qasemi said Saturday night.

He added that the sanctions against Iran's oil have existed for many years, stressing that it would be wrong to consider that the sanctions started as of Sunday.

He emphasized that Iran is still selling its oil in the international markets and 'a part of the oil sales to Europe had been cut by Iran ahead of the sanctions taking effect.'

Qasemi also stated that sanctions have no effect on the development of Iran's oil industry, adding, ', we are selling oil to those European customers with whom we had interactions since a long time ago, some of whom had participated in the development of oil projects, [as well as] many countries with a high economic growth and developing countries.'

The minister noted that Iran's oil sales to Europe constituted only 18 percent of the total sales before the sanctions and said, 'It does not seem difficult to substitute customers for this much of sales because there are currently countries that have applied for buying Iran's oil."

He warned those who have imposed the oil sanctions on Iran and stated, “We have repeatedly said you shouldn't politicize the oil market because the citizens of those countries that impose the embargoes will be hit the hardest.”

Qasemi described as 'irrational and illegal' the bid to impose sanctions on Iran and said that the oil sanctions on Iran were not imposed by the United Nations and that only a handful of countries moved to impose the sanctions due to their irrational demands.

He emphasized, though, that the Islamic Republic would pursue the issue through international bodies.

On January 23, the European Union (EU) foreign ministers approved new sanctions against Tehran to prevent EU member states from buying Iranian crude or doing business with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and to freeze the Iranian assets across the union. The sanctions went into effect as of Sunday, July 1.

Qasemi also ordered his staff to "mobilize" against "illegal sanctions,".

Late Saturday Qasemi told state television that Iran has weathered previous rounds of sanctions. "I do not see it as a problem that enemies have imposed an embargo ," he said. "Simply, because they have imposed similar sanctions years ago, and nothing happened."
He said Iran has already stopped selling oil to many EU countries and sold to others instead. "Developing countries and countries with fast economic growth have no alternative to oil. Fortunately, because of the quality of our country's oil, all are interest in using it."

Qasemi also said the anti-Iranian sanctions have given indigenous manufacturers the opportunity to take over the county’s oil industry from big foreign firms.

'Making good use of the opportunity of sanctions, indigenous manufacturers are now rapidly replacing large foreign producers and this can contribute to the complete independence of the oil industry from foreigners,' Qasemi noted.

He added that the Iranian oil industry is recruiting national rather than foreign contractors in their race towards “100-percent” independence from foreigners.

A contract will soon be signed with Iranian contractors to build 12 drilling rigs, in line with the policy for making the most of the country’s domestic capabilities in the upstream sector of the oil industry, Qasemi said.

“We want to use all domestic capacities for promoting the country’s oil industry and utilizing its oil resources,” he added.

In an address to the Iranian Majlis (parliament) earlier this week, Qasemi said with sufficient investment in the oil industry, Iran's crude and gas output would increase four- and 2.5-fold respectively by the end of the Fifth Economic Development Plan (2011-2015).