Iran is planning to open a commodity exchange, under names variously referred to in English as Iran Petroleum Exchange, International Oil Bourse or Iranian Oil Bourse, for the express purpose of trading oil, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, primarily the Euro. If successful, this would establish a euro-based pricing mechanism for oil trading, or oil marker as it is called by traders.

The acronym IOB has been used as it can be interpreted as either "International Oil Bourse" or "Iranian Oil Bourse", but it has no official status.

The geographical location is expected to be the island of Kish.

Background

The three current oil markers are all US dollar denominated: North America's West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), North Sea Brent Crude, and the UAE Dubai Crude. The two major oil bourses are the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYME) in New York City and the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London. The proposed Iranian bourse would establish a fourth oil marker, denominated by the euro.
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Timeline

The Iranian oil bourse, first reported in 2005, was to have a planned opening date of March 20, 2006 [1], which is the Iranian New Year, Nauroz. According to an April 2005 report, the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), the Wimpole Consortium and a private staff fund for retired petroleum workers will together to form the consortium developing the exchange.

In January 2006, Chris Cook of the Wimpole Consortium referred to delays in the process due to the election to the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and subsequent difficulty in appointing a new oil minister acceptable both to the president and parliament.

In March 2006, the Petroleum Minister of Iran, Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, announced that due to "technical glitches", the Bourse launch was postponed, with no new date set. However, as of April 26 Iran had restarted its move to open the oil market, and Kazem announced the bourse was set to open the first week of May.

In May 2006, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davud Danesh-Jafari said the Oil Ministry has a two-month deadline for presenting the Articles of Association of the Iranian Oil Bourse. Danesh-Jafari said that the Euro had not yet been finalized as the legal tender of transactions in the oil bourse, and the final decision about that depends upon the Oil Ministry’s proposed IOB Articles of Association

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