Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 16
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran has no budget for developing joint oil and gas fields as the country's oil revenues have plunged.
Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh referred to the reasons behind a decline in investment in Iran 's oil sector, saying that considering the current level of oil revenues, no money will remain to be invested in the development of joint oil and gas fields, Iran 's Mehr news agency reported on Feb. 16.
"Once upon a time, we used to sell 2 million barrels of oil at $100 per barrel. The share of oil ministry was 14.5 percent of oil revenues, equaling about $13 billion. But, currently we sell one million barrels of oil at $40, which fetches us about $3 billion. How can we run the oil ministry with such a low income?"
In Iranian fiscal year 1390 (March 2011-March 2012), some $21 billion was invested in Iran 's oil projects. The figure declined to $17 billion a year later. If this trend continues, no investment will be possible using internal sources, he said.
In April 2014, Iran 's Oil Ministry said it would invest over $20 billion in the development of the oil fields it shares with Iraq.
Iran shares oil and gas fields with most of its neighbors, including Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, as well as Oman and Turkmenistan.
Zanganeh has said that Iran 's crude oil output is forecast to increase by about 200,000 barrels per day to 4 million barrels per day. By holding 157 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, Iran possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of crude oil.
Edited by CN