Iran Welcomes Domestic, Foreign Oil Investment: NIOC's CEO

The Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said: "If the oil industry and the country's capital market are combined, the jump in investment in the oil industry under the 13th administration will be materialized."

Speaking on Tuesday, Mohsen Khojasteh-Mehr underlined the need for capital market investment in the oil industry, and said that the first working meeting at the beginning of the term of the 13th administration should have been held with the capital market practitioners.”

He added: "The issue of investment in the National Iranian Oil Company is one of the priorities because the plans of this company are capital-intensive as well as in addition to generating revenue. Upstream projects, despite being capital-intensive, can transform the country's economy.”

The NIOC's CEO said 120 years have passed since the discovery of oil in Masjed Soleiman and during this period about five billion barrels of oil worth US$1,000 billion have been produced and supplied in Iran.

The CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company stated that current contract models fail to meet the interests of investors, adding: "The ecosystem of the country's economy indicates an abundance of liquidity inside, and despite strong need to invest in oil and gas, these resources are not available, and this is a contradiction in the liquidity of the country's economy, and these conditions have severely affected the oil economy.”

Underlining the need of the oil industry to attract US$160 billion in fresh investment, Khojasteh-Mehr said: "If we want to ramp up crude oil output to 5.7 million bpd, we need almost US$90 billion in financial resources, and if we want to increase the daily gas production capacity from 1 Bcm per day to 1.5 Bcm/d by 2026, we have to invest US$70 billion.” - Shana