Speaking in a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Owji provided a detailed report on financial resources and development plans of the oil industry, in which he said Iran’s oil production stood at 3.550 million barrels per day last year while gas production rose by 30 million cubic meters per day including 7 million cubic meters per day through collecting flares’ associated gases.

“This year petroleum ministry plans to bring online 79 uncompleted projects and launch implementation of 50 new projects in oil, gas and petrochemical sectors, which is unprecedented and could be called a revolution in oil sector.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Vice-President for Scientific, Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy, Ruhollah Dehghani Firouzabadi, said that petroleum ministry had won the first rank for the first-time production of strategic goods.

he said that the petroleum ministry had been able to acquire the rank for the third time in a row adding “in our view, creating a real and sustainable market for knowledge-based companies is the best way of supporting them, and fortunately the petroleum ministry is a pioneer in this area.”

Referring to the petroleum ministry’s efforts to promote knowledge-based activities, he said: during the 2.5 years of the 13th administration in office, the ministry has expanded its cooperation with the knowledge-based companies from 150 to 700 companies.

He added that implementation of just 60 percent of the agreements between knowledge-based companies and the petroleum ministry had enabled the country to save more than 1.5 billion dollars.

Later this week, in the signing ceremonies of 11 oil industry contacts and memorandums of understanding (MoU) at the closing day of the Iran Oil Show 2024 on Saturday, the vice president for scientific and technology had said: “frankly speaking, during the past two years, the petroleum ministry has paved the way for oil industry to turn into a knowledge-based business.”

“Creating a real and stable market for knowledge-based companies is the best support we can do for these businesses and fortunately the petroleum ministry has won the first rank in this regard.” He noted.  

Elsewhere in his remarks, he said that over the past 20 years more than 10 thousand knowledge-based companies had been formed in the country adding the oil industry has provided the best opportunities for the national economy to become knowledge-based.

Referring to a 12-article agreement signed in February 2023, worth 2 billion dollars, he said that 60 percent of those agreements were either on the verge of signing contract or delivering goods. 

Compared to the former administration’s performance in which getting just a project was a success for knowledge-based companies, he said: today the important thing is the quality and quantity of these companies and trusting in their performance.

“Our department has granted 250 first-time production permissions to the petroleum ministry of which 110 permissions have started construction.”, he concluded.