Speaking during the signing ceremony of developing two oil fields on June 16, he commemorated the memory of late President Ibrahim Raisi, noting that “developing least-developed regions of the country and creating jobs for the people living in those areas was the top priority of the late president.”

the majority of 153 projects which came to fruition were projects that had been ignored before the 13th administration taking office, including South Pars gas field phase 11 which its development contract was exchanged for 20 years between the related sides, but when the 13th administration took office it decided to start its development which is now complete and operational, the Minister of Petroleum said.

Owji continued: The country managed to acquire good revenues by implementing these kinds of projects in the oil, gas, refining and petrochemical sectors.   

According to him, while the oil industry’s growth stood at 10 percent 2 years ago it reached 20 percent last year; the highest rate of growth among all sectors of the economy.

The oil industry has 300 projects on the agenda of which 80 projects are new ones, he said adding total value of these projects reaches 130 billion dollars, some of them are now operational.

Referring to cooperation with Russia, he said a satisfactory basis had been laid for expanding relations with Russia “and we will hear good news in this regard in the future.”

The 13th administration so far has signed 5 billion dollars of oil contracts with Russian companies and 250 thousand barrels of oil per day the country produces, comes from the contracts have been already signed with Russian companies, Owji said.