The 13th International
Exhibition of Oil, Gas, and Petrochemicals was held in Tehran at a time that
international oil prices are still rising.
The sweet taste of high oil prices was
evident in the remarks of the Iranian Minister of Petroleum Gholamhossein
Nozari who attended THE inaugural ceremony of the exhibition. He was very
satisfied with an oil price of 104 dollars per barrel. Rejecting low supply as
the main reason for high prices, Nozari noted that other factors will push oil
price up.
He added that the actual price of every
barrel of oil currently stood at 36 dollars.
Just the night before his speech, global
oil prices were still rising and hit a new record of 104 barrels per day for
OPEC oil and 112 dollars per barrel for Brent crude. However, later news
announced international oil prices at 113 dollars per barrel for OPEC oil and
114 dollars per barrel for Brent crude. Although prices started to fall
slightly after that, but experts still blame devaluation of the US dollar and
increased oil demand on the part of China as the main reasons behind the
recent price hike. As the country’s oil revenues are on the rise, so
investments in huge oil resources of Iran should also increase.
Gholamhossein Nozari announced that
about 500 billion dollars should be invested in Iran’s oil, gas and
petrochemicals by 2024 and stressed on the necessity of establishing a
specialized oil development bank.
Establishment of the bank, which had
been initially proposed late last Iranian year after escalation of foreign
sanctions, has remained a proposal and despite stagnation in oil, gas and
petrochemical industries, due to absence of enough funds, no serious effort
has been made to implement new projects. However, the minister of petroleum
added that investments in oil industry should be increased by, at least, 70
percent compared to the current figure by 2024 while Iran has only attracted
4.5 billion dollars investments in its oil industry during 17 years ending in
2006. In fact, given the need for speeding up implementation of oil industry
projects to facilitate more serious presence of Iran in international markets,
perhaps establishment of a specialized bank to develop the sector is the last
resort for development of an economic system which is heavily dependent on
oil. Of course, Bank of Industry and Mine has refused to invest in the
implementation of phases 15 and 16 of South Pars Project.
As for threats posed against the French
Total Company, minister of petroleum added that the problem between Iran and
Total had nothing to do with expenses because the Iranian oil industry had
refused the company’s cost appraisal report. "We have given them until June to
resume negotiations in another way," he said.
Managing director of the National
Iranian Oil Company had already threatened Shell and Total companies that they
should make a final decision on the implementation of their projects by the
end of the first Iranian month of Farvardin (April 20, 2008). However, there
was no response from the two companies until the minister of petroleum
announced that more time has been given to the two companies.
