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Iran’s oil industry needs $30B investment per year

Business Materials 28 February 2015 14:09 (UTC +04:00)
Iran needs about $30 billion per year to maintain its oil output and for development of oil projects, Deputy Oil Minister Mansour Moazzami said.

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 28

By Umid Niayesh - Trend:

Iran needs about $30 billion per year to maintain its oil output and for development of oil projects, Deputy Oil Minister Mansour Moazzami said.

He said that investment in the country's oil industry has decreased in recent years.

Decline in investments has lead to delay and halt in the development projects of the oil industry, Moazzami said, the oil ministry's official SHANA news agency reported Feb. 28.

Some experts believe that the ongoing trend of oil price fall will force Iranian administration to halt its oil and gas projects.

Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said Feb. 16 that Iran has no budget for developing joint oil and gas fields-which is the ministry's priority- as the country's oil revenues have plunged.

"Once 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, which equals 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?" Zanganeh said.

In Iranian fiscal year 1390 (March 2011-March 2012), some $21 billion was invested in Iran's oil projects, he said.

"The figure declined to $17 billion a year later. If this trend continues, no investment will be possible using internal sources," Zanganeh said.

It should be noted by holding 157 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, Iran possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of crude oil.

Follow the author on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh

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