In separate statements on Monday, top government officials assured the public that Iran's oil sector is on the road to recovery more than six months after international sanctions targeting its nuclear program were lifted.
“During this year’s spring [March 20-June 20], Iran exported 2.56 million barrels of oil per day on average,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the government spokesperson, was quoted as saying by IRNA in a news conference on Monday.
“This is two times more than last year’s oil export volume, which amounted to 1.2-1.3 million barrels a day,” he added.
Iran is planning to boost crude production to 5.8 million barrels per day in five years, including 4.8 million bpd of heavy crude and 1 million barrels of condensate—a type of light, sweet crude extracted from gas fields in the Persian Gulf.
Nobakht noted that following the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action over the past six months, the country attracted $5.168 billion in foreign investment for 66 domestic projects that are currently seeking to obtain the necessary licenses.
New Oil Contracts
First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri also told Shana that on Saturday, he signed the final draft of the new Iran Petroleum Contracts that underwent about 150 changes.
Jahangiri stressed that based on the bill passed in Iran’s Parliament, the government determines the general terms of the new contractual model and the Oil Ministry carries out negotiations with the foreign sides under the framework.
“Contracts have been designed to raise the extraction rate of Iranian oilfields and urge exploration and investment in areas, such as the country’s east and center, that have not received oil investment yet,” he said.
The Oil Ministry will review each contract to be signed by potential new investors, including details on price, duration and other terms of the project.
On the process of adopting the outline of new oil contracts, the vice president said the administration spent a long period of time to prepare the contractual framework, adding that it has had many sessions to listen to criticisms, based on which many changes were made in the contracts.
“Some of Iran’s neighbors, which share oil/gas fields with us, try to prevent Iran from finalizing the new oil contracts to maintain their share of extraction from the joint fields. But we never give up and will soon sign oil contracts [with foreign companies],” he said. The government wants to attract international oil companies that can make long-term investments worth billions of dollars and bring cutting-edge technology into Iran.
Iran’s Economy Minister Ali Tayyebnia said the country faces no hurdle in receiving oil revenues.
“Prior to the implementation of JCPOA, Iran had to pay a higher cost to earn oil revenues, though the country now sells oil without any additional costs,” he said.
According to Tayyebnia, Iran is working with small- and medium-sized foreign banks, but faces problems in banking transactions with large ones, which will be alleviated in the near future.
