TEHRAN – Head of Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) has said that contracts for $29 billion of investment in the oil and gas industry projects have been concluded with domestic firms, and another $10 billion worth of new investment deals will be concluded soon, Shana reported on Sunday.

Masoud Mirkazemi said that over the past month various working groups and consortia have been formed in PBO which led to the signing of a $7 billion contract for the development of the joint Azadegan oil field and a $19 billion memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the construction of two petrochemical plants.

“We are also preparing another $10 billion worth of projects to be awarded, so it is necessary to use different methods and initiatives to attract the necessary resources,” Mirkazemi said.

Back in September 2021, Oil Minister Javad Oji said his ministry was making necessary arrangements and planning for attracting $125 billion of foreign and domestic investment in the country’s oil and gas industry within the next four to eight years.

Earlier this month, Oji reiterated that the oil ministry is seriously following the plans for funding the oil industry’s development projects.

Speaking on national TV, Oji noted that recent studies show that over $160 billion of investment is required to complete the country’s oil industry development projects over the next eight years.

“Planning has been done to provide this figure, and considering the current progress [in our plans] there will be no problem in this regard,” he said.

The official noted that the current government has so far attracted over $80 billion for the country’s oil and gas projects and an agreement worth $40 billion has also been signed with Russia’s Gazprom.

Our priority is developing joint oil and gas fields, he said, adding: “In the downstream sector, we reached an agreement with Gazprom to build gas transmission and export pipelines to countries such as Oman and Pakistan.”

“We have also signed 28 contracts with a total value of over one billion dollars for collecting flare gas, most of which have been signed with private companies that will use the collected gas as payment,” Oji added.

EF/MA