velopment of all the many oilfields and gasfields shared with neighboring countries by Now Ruz.
This has been a political issue for decades, but the Oil Ministry has done next-to-nothing despite concerns of the public, the Majlis and the Oil Ministry itself that neighbors are sucking the gas and oil out of shared fields while Iran stands idle.
In May, the newly named managing director of the state oil company, Ahmad Qalebani, said that developing oilfields shared with neighbors was one of his priorities—but that is what almost all of his predecessors also said.
Hamid-Reza Katouzian, chairman of the Majlis Energy Committee, said Iran has done hardly anything to develop shared fields for a third of a century and is shooting itself in the foot by such sluggishness.
On Saturday, Deputy Oil Minister Mohsen Khojastemehr told the Mehr news agency that decisions would be made by Now Ruz on how to develop all the oilfields and gasfields shared with neighbors. He said that to complete the development of those fields within the next five years would take $50 billion. He didn’t say where that money would come from, raising doubts about the ability to develop the fields.
Khojastemehr said the government had decided to fast-track the decision-making process and would not sit for lengthy negotiations with foreign oil firms. That implies Iran wants to exploit the fields on its own without looking for foreign investors.
But he also said talks were underway with foreign as well as domestic firms for the development of the first such oilfield, Azar, which is shared with Iraq. It was previously announced that Azar would require $1.4 billion to develop with production of 20,000 barrels a day.
Deputy Katouzian said the problems with wrong policies and practices in the oil industry goes back to 1977, even before the revolution.
He blamed inadequate investment, wrong policies and poor decisions for slow progress throughout the oil sector.
“Unfortunately, sometimes decisions are made without taking the national interests into consideration and lead to permanent harm to the country,” he was reported by the Tehran Times as saying.
“If we compare the rate of development of Iran’s joint oil fields with other Persian Gulf regional states, we see that from 1977 onwards very little progress has been made in Iran’s part of the joint fields.”
He cited Iraq’s current aggressive initiative to bring in foreign firms to develop Iraqi oilfields, including those shared with Iran, and said this will not only “undermine our position in the world energy market, but also reduce Iran’s influence in international diplomacy,” a direct critique of President Ahmadi-nejad’s claims to have made Iran a major world power.
Iran has oil and gasfields that are shared with almost all of its Western neighbors. The biggest is the South Pars gasfield where Qatar is much further advanced than Iran in exploiting the gas there.
