Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 15
By Fatih Karimov- Trend:
Iran can produce oil at $1-$1.5 per barrel in its central oil fields, Salbali Karimi, manager director of the Iran's Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC) said.
Oil production costs in Iran is among the lowest in the world, Karimi said, adding the least expensive crude oil and gas in terms of low cost of production is currently produced in the central areas of the country.
"In some fields it is as low as $1 per barrel," the official said, Iran's Mehr news agency reported Dec. 14.
He further said that since last year the company has taken measures to decrease oil and gas production costs to minimum in the ongoing projects.
Karimi also forecasted that the global energy market would not allow oil prices to remain low for a long time.
"The oil and energy markets cannot tolerate low prices for a long period," he said, adding crude oil has an optimal price at which costs and benefits for investors, producers and consumers are reasonable.
Meanwhile the new crude price to new low record has forced oil companies to put their development plans on hold, Iran is determined to attract huge investments for development projects in its oil and gas sector once the international sanctions are removed.
Iran needs $250 billion of investment in its oil industry between 2016 and 2025, including $176 billion in its upstream sector and another $77 billion in downstream spending, head of investment at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Ali Kardor said in October.
The country plans to boost oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day and gas output to 1.4 billion cubic meters a day by 2021.
Each barrel of conventional crude oil in the Persian Gulf costs Iran between five and 10 dollars. Tehran also is determined to run new projects in Caspian Sea littoral areas in north and north east.
Saeed Nazari, an official with the National Iranian Drilling Company(NIDC) said Dec. 14 that Iran is conducting new exploratory operations in northern and north eastern areas.
Recently an agreement was signed between Khazar Oil Company and the NIDC for drilling exploratory wells in the northern province of Golestan, he said.