Baku, Azerbaijan, March 12
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran's budget bill for the next calendar year, staring March 21, has allocated $100 billion for improving fuel consumption patterns, IRNA quoted oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying on March 12.
The minister added that selling crude oil should be limited. To this end, some $100 billion should be invested in petrochemical and oil refining projects, he added.
Iran's next year budget bill has set the ceiling budget at 7830 trillion rials (about $315 billion based on the U.S. official exchange rate of 24,850 rials). The figure shows 8.4 percent growth year on year.
The bill has been devised on an average oil price of 100 dollars per barrel and the exchange rate of 26,000 rials for USD.
Iran has set the daily oil production at 3.3 million barrels and an oil income of 750 trillion rials (about $30.1 billion) in the next calendar year's budget bill. Each barrel of crude oil and gas condensate will be sold to domestic refineries at $18.5, according to the bill.
The bill has not mentioned exact figures for domestic production and exports of oil, but the Iranian oil minister has recently said that at least 1.5 million barrels of oil will be exported next year.
According to OPEC's annual report, Iran's total refining capacity was 1.681 million barrels per day last year, a 5 percent decline compared to 2011.