NIOC’s managing director added: today, 30 April, we are witnessing a very important economic event in the oil industry with the participation of people.

 He continued: we should turn to direct and indirect investment in the oil industry, which is being done by the 13th administration, to realize our goals. 

According to him, in the past only exploration and production companies could invest in the oil industry, but today, by relying on the minister of petroleum initiatives and necessary coordination with the government, the petrochemical companies are also authorized to participate in the oil industry’s upstream sector activities.

Managing director of NIOC said that the oil industry had previously experienced domestic banks' participation in implementation of oil sector projects which led to a unique and unprecedented investment of 13 billion dollars in the sector of which as much as 12.5 billion dollars were invested in the shared oil and gas fields development.

Following the finalization and implementation of today's memorandums, more than 16 gas fields of the country will come online, he said, noting by exploitation of these projects, 127 million cubic meters of gas per day will be added to the country's gas production capacity in the four provinces of Khuzestan, Fars, Bushehr, Kohgiluyeh, and Boyar Ahmad.

In my opinion, petrochemical companies’ investment in upstream sector is a kind of win-win game for these companies and NIOC because by turning to these kinds of investments, in fact the people as the main stakeholders of the petrochemical companies and holdings, take part in the investments, NIOC’s managing director said.

He concluded that while during the two previous administrations, annual worth of oil industry contracts reached 1.6 billion dollars on average, during the two and a half years of the 13th administration in office, the figure stands at 6.3 billion dollars annually and reaches 15 billion dollars in total, a considerable amount of it has been done by the private sector.

On 30 April, NIOC signed several memorandums of understanding with Iranian holdings, petrochemical companies and exploration and production (E&P) companies for doing studies concerning development plans of 16 gas fields, by 6.4 billion dollars of investment.