As many of us know, the esteemed Saudi Oil Minister Mr Al-Naimi has been saying for some time that they can't find customers for their heavy oil. With the exception of the Vanadium contaminated oil from the Manifa field, this hasn't made sense to me. While light sweet crude may have peaked, and price spreads have been rising, prices for heavy grades of oil are still over $50/barrel for grades like Iranian Heavy (30 degrees). Even Mexican Maya (22 degrees) is over $50. However, this story tends to back Mr Al-Naimi up.

So the question is, why don't the Iranians just lower their price, rather than shut the thing down altogether? Surely they'd be making money even if they were only getting $30/barrel for the Soroush oil? The obvious explanation to a peak-oiler is that they are pretty confident they'll get more than $50 in the future, so they're going to shut it in and wait rather than discount it more now. However, we need some actual evidence before we can be confident that is the explanation. I'd be grateful if anyone can shed any light on this.

I checked into it a little and was able to verify that the Soroush and Nowruz field do exist and Shell has been redeveloping them after they were destroyed in the Iraq/Iran war.

Here's a picture of the Soroush platform:

RAHEB HOMAVANDI/REUTERS