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Acting president opens 17 petroleum projects worth $3b
Acting President Mohammad Mokhber attended a ceremony in the Iranian Oil Ministry headquarters on Monday to remotely inaugurate the projects that were scattered in seven provinces across Iran, Press TV wrote.
One of the important measures taken by the 13th government was to focus on strengthening the oil industry by relying on domestic capabilities, Mokhber said speaking in the inaugural ceremony.
He went on to say that by attracting domestic and foreign investments and taking advantage of the country’s engineers and experts, the Ministry of Oil organized the oilfields that had been abandoned by the Europeans.
Meanwhile, Oil Minister Javad Owji said in the ceremony that by launching the projects, in addition to creating jobs for 15,000 people, it will fetch about $2 billion annually.
The minister went on to say that in the last three years, the Ministry of Oil has signed more than $23 billion worth of contracts for the development of joint and independent oil and gas fields, while in the field of energy consumption optimization, the ministry has received approval from the government to sign new projects worth $36 billion.
The projects covered oilfield development, refineries and petrochemical plants, fuel pipelines and flared gas recovery systems.
The official IRNA news agency said in a report that the projects will increase Iran’s flare gas recovery capacity by 4 million cubic meters per day while boosting the country’s capacity for production of Euro 5 gasoil by 5.7 million liters per day.
Petrochemicals production capacity will increase by 3 million metric tons per year as a result of the new plants launched on Monday, said the report, adding that some 222 kilometers of pipelines had also been inaugurated to increase the ability of refiners to transfer products to various parts of the country.
Most of the projects were in southern oil-rich provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormuzgan and Fars, it said.
Iran has relied on domestic expertise and investment to develop its petroleum sector in recent years despite the fact that the country has been struggling with a series of unprecedented sanctions imposed by the United States.
Oil exports and production have increased as a result of the policy, with Owji saying earlier this week that total oil output in Iran will reach around 4 million barrels per day by the end of the calendar year to late march.