Ali Karder who was speaking in a press conference on Tuesday told reporters that Sixth Development Plan predicted attraction of $134bn to oil industry; “this lump sum will be in the form of diverse oil agreements; with reforms brought into oil deals, priority will be shifted toward improving the recovery rate of reserves to more than 20 per cent in country’s antiquated oil wells,” he added.
Karder also added that NIOC had been engaged in negotiations with Iraqi officials for swap oil produced in Kurdistan Regional Government, but with no specific swap model still agreed; “a final agreement with Iraqi side will only be possible when the swapped oil has no impact on Iran’s local market; currently, priorities of the NIOC are development of joint oil fields of West Karoun, Persian Gulf, and South Pars; the cost of production of each barrel of crude oil is very low in Iranian setting, which for the time being rules out the immediacy of shale gas and shale oil schemes,” he detailed for the press.
On NIOC’s current debts, Karder said that the debt amounted to $70bn, repayment and transaction costs included; while the real amount of debts he believed was $50bn; “the Sixth Development Plan predicts schemes of buyback agreements which would contribute to decreasing this sum; NIOC’s major part of debts is to Central Bank and National Development Fund, which are domestic bodies and no serious concerns would be raised, with no impact on the conditions of oil agreements with foreign companies.”
Still in related story, Pirouz Mousavi told Mehr News on Tuesday that the industry had scored a new record in exporting oil; “as a major oil terminal of country, Kharg oil terminal has hosted simultaneous mooring of 10 oil tankers, where they had been loading Iran’s oil to foreign destinations; this is for the first time 9 mammoth oil tankers moored in Azerpad and T terminals,” he told the press.
“The operation had been totally indigenously handled with no accident reported; these tankers have exported a total of 8.2 million barrels of oil form Kharg terminals,” Mousavi added.
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