Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.30 / Trend F.Milad/
Iran will not offer its large oil and gas projects, worth 2-4 billion dollars, to multinational companies, said Behrouz Alishiri, head of the Organization for Investment, Economic & Technical Assistance of Iran.
He added that Iran is now negotiating with small and medium size companies to participate in oil and gas projects, according to IRNA news agency.
Despite the array of problems facing its energy sector, Iran successfully raised crude oil and natural gas production in 2010", Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) magazine wrote in an article in its recent issue.
The weekly announced that "The fact that, Iran has managed to increase production under the current circumstances is remarkable. Analysts say investment in the Iranian oil and sector is down as much as 35 percent due to sanctions."
Crude oil production in Iran in 2010 totaled 4.3 million b/d - up 46,000 b/d from its 2009 production of 4.2 million b/d - an increase of 1.1 percent.
Gas production also climbed 5.6 percent to 138.5 billion cubic meters from 131.2 billion cubic meters in 2009.
Iran produced 5.2 percent of the world's oil output, the fourth-largest producer after Russia, Saudi Arabia and the U.S..
With 4.3 percent of natural gas production, Iran was ranked fourth behind the U.S., Russia and Canada.
Iran's 2010 proved reserves were 137 billion barrels, unchanged from the 2009 figure and representing 9.9 percent of total global reserves.