IRAN

Iran and BP End Shipping Joint Venture 

BP of the UK and Iran's National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) have agreed to disband a joint-venture shipping company set up in 1976. According to a BP statement on 3 April the decision to dissolve the company - which at one point before the Iranian revolution was operating a fleet of ten ships, including four VLCCs - was taken because "it no longer served any purpose."