Baku, Azerbaijan, May 4
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran may use assets of its National Development Fund (NDF) in developing the South Pars gas field.
Iranian first vice president Es'haq Jahangiri said that the Oil Ministry is facing problems to fund projects relating to the development of the South Pars field, Iran's Shana news agency reported on May 4.
The government will make every effort to resolve problems of the oil and gas industry, especially in the South Pars gas field, he added.
Assets of the National Development Fund (NDF) of Iran amount to $60 billion, the deputy director general of the fund has announced.
"The NDF's reserves were around $54 billion when president Hassan Rouhani took the office last August, and since then the figure has reached $60 billion, deputy director general of the NDF," Qasem Hosseini told Trend on May 2.
Hosseini went on to say that the fund isn't facing any problems, and the situation is desirable.
The NDF is Iran's sovereign wealth fund. It was founded in 2011 to replace Oil Stabilization Fund.
Based on Article 84 of the Fifth Five-year Socio Economic Development Plan (2011-2015), the National Development Fund was established to transform oil and gas revenues to productive investment for future generation. Some 23 percent of the revenues from the mentioned sources went into the NDF in 2013. This share will reach 32 percent by the end of 2016.
South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters (South Pars) in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, referred to as the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.
The Iranian gas field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, about 8 percent of the world's reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of LNG resources.South Pars total production currently stands at over 280 million cubic meters from which 202 million cubic meters is being pumped to the national gas network.
Deputy Director of Iranian Offshore Engineering Construction Company Amir Saeed Najafi said on October 27, 2013, that the income from each standard phase of South Pars gas field will reach $8.5 billion.
"By inauguration of each phase Iran earns $11.5 million each day," the IRNA News Agency quoted Najafi as saying.