Azerbaijan, Baku, Jan. 10 / Trend F.Milad/
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) managing director has called the Central Bank to raise the profit rate accrued to the bonds which are issued for financing oil and gas projects in a bid to attract the public participation.
"People expect the bonds to be more profitable for them, otherwise they will not buy the bonds," the NIOC head Ahmad Qalebani told Mehr news agency. So, oil and gas projects will face financial problems and will be delayed."
About $5 billion in bonds will be issued in the current Iranian calendar year (to end on March 20, 2012) to speed up the implementation of South Pars gas field projects.
Iran will also issue $15 billion in sukuk (Islamic Sharia-based) bonds in the current year to be invested in the domestic oil industry, oil minister Rostam Qasemi said last month.
Qasemi added that the oil industry's infrastructure needs more than 500 trillion rials (about $50 billion) of investment to achieve the goals of Iran's 20-Year Economic Outlook Plan.
The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.