Mr. Owji said on Thursday that the Ministry of Petroleum plans to use the power of a large number of local contractors and holdings with good financial capacity to carry out projects in the upstream and downstream sectors.

"We plan to award the development projects of fields and associated gas collection to the private sector and this initiative started with the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) and Bidboland Gas Refinery.”

A ceremony was held on Thursday to launch the facilities and storage tanks for export products and independent wharf of Bidboland Persian Gulf Gas Refining Company in the presence of Iranian Minister of Petroleum Javad Owji, Morteza Shahmirzaei, the CEO of the National Petrochemical Company, Mohsen Khojastehmehr, the CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company, and Abdolali Ali Asgari, the CEO of the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC).

Bidboland Persian Gulf independent storage facilities and reservoirs were constructed on a land area of 64 hectares with an investment of €270 million with an annual export capacity of 2 million tons of valuable products including propane, butane, pentane plus.

Bidboland Persian Gulf Gas Refining Company is the largest gas processing facility in the history of Iran's oil industry and the largest gas hub in West Asia in terms of production capacity.