Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 22/ Trend M. Moezzi
The National Iranian Oil Company's (NIOC) managing director announced Iran's oil production had dropped 20,000 barrels since last year, Mehr News Agency reported.
Gas production was up 10 per cent from last year and will increase 20 per cent in four years, Ahmad Qalebani said. The projected increase depends on attracting the investments needed for the country's development plans. However according to OPEC statistics, Iranian oil production has declined from 4.07 to 3.55 during past five years.
As outlined in its Fifth five-year Socio Economic Development Plan (2011-2015), Iran must produce 5.1 million barrels per day (mbpd) of oil. To achieve this, the oil industry needs to attract $156 billion that is $1.7 billion every month in investments Mr Qalebani said.
The NIOC's managing director expressed his disappointment with Iran's lack of success in finding investors for its oil development projects and said, "Under these conditions, Iran will continue to fall behind in some projects, especially oil production from joint fields like the South Pars Gas field where for years we've let Qatar draw gas from it as we fall behind and all that will be left for us is regret and pity. For this reason we have to finalise oil projects by attracting the needed investments."
Iran and Qatar have shares in the South Pars gas field. The Iranian share which is divided into 29 phases, accounts for about 14 trillion cubic metres of gas, or about eight per cent of the total world reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources
Qatar launched its development in the South Pars 10 years before Iran and has intensified developing the field, while Iran suffers from international sanctions and technical-financial obstacles.