TEHRAN - Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Masoud Karbasian said NIOC has managed to attract 80 trillion rials (about $1.9 billion) of funding for oil projects through the stock market during the past eight months.

“We need financial resources to carry out oil projects and to finance such projects we shouldn’t solely rely on government resources; public funds can also be used to implement such projects,” Karbasian told ILNA on Tuesday.

"Investing in oil projects can create financial security for people's capitals," he said, noting that oil is a public wealth and people have a right to benefit from its profits.

He further underlined the need for directing people’s capitals toward development projects, saying “If liquidity is directed toward production and development it would be far better than going toward inflationary paths."

He emphasized that “Although the issue of financing through the stock market is not a new subject, we have been following up on this issue since last year and in total, in the last eight months we have collected 80 trillion rials through capital market for financing oil projects.”

Since the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions Iran has been seriously pursuing the involvement of the private sector in the country’s oil and gas sector and since financing and providing liquidity has been for long one of the major issues in the way of domestic companies’ involvement in oil industry, NIOC has decided to offer stocks of some oil projects in the stock exchange to help financing such projects.

In early September, the issue of implementing Iran's oil projects by domestic contractors was discussed in the 38th session of the country's Supreme Council of Economic Coordination and rules and regulations pertaining to the subject were approved by the council.

EF/MA