TEHRAN – Oil Minister Javad Oji has said 260 trillion rials (about $902.9 million) has been allocated for the implementation of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC)’s priority projects in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21).

Oji made the remarks in an Oil Ministry committee meeting held on Sunday for discussing new projects in the gas sector, Shana reported.

In the meeting which was chaired by First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, some of NIGC’s important priority projects in the downstream sector were approved.

According to Oji, the mentioned resources will be allocated for a variety of projects in order to maintain the production in refineries, improve gas storage capacity, develop the gas transmission network, and supply gas to cities and villages that do not have access to the national gas network.

Further in the meeting, NIGC Head Majid Chegeni also presented a report on the company’s priority projects.

Back in August, Oji said that his ministry was seriously following the plans for funding the oil and gas industry’s development projects.

Speaking on national TV, the minister noted that recent studies show that over $160 billion of investment is required to complete the country’s oil and gas 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