Attending a public meeting of the parliament on Wednesday, the petroleum minister provided a report of the Petroleum Ministry's performance during the first three years of the 13th administration in office.

Owji said: when I took over the petroleum ministry in September 2021, all the issues had been tied to removal of sanctions. Iran's actual oil production had reached 2.1 million barrels per day and oil exports were at their lowest level in a decade.

He continued: "Collecting oil revenues was in a critical situation and we were facing an astronomical figure of deficit due to the provision of targeted subsidies and public resources of the government. Also, I should remind you that at the beginning of 13th administration, in August 2021, we had 87 million barrels of oil floating on waters without the possibility of selling even one barrel of heavy and extra heavy crude oil."  

At the same time, relatively large projects and those enjoyed priority in view of helping oil production were faced uncertainty in the petroleum ministry, the domestic manufacturers and contractors capabilities had remained idle and no one believed in domestic capabilities; the minister of petroleum told the parliament adding, under these circumstances, the country was faced with intense energy imbalances including instability in providing fuels specifically during 2020 winter when power plants were forced to shut down due to lack of gas delivery.   

Meanwhile, natural gas storage projects were abandoned and many onshore and offshore shared oil fields' development plans were neglected amid the dissatisfaction among the committed oil industry’s capable human resources who were unmotivated, the minister noted.

“Givern these circumstances the 13th administration’s petroleum ministry started its activities in September 2021 and over the past three years, by relying on God’s grace and round-the-clock Jihadi efforts, has managed to raise oil production by more than 1.4 million barrels per day; bulk of it due to signing investment contracts with domestic contractors and manufacturers.” Owji said.   

 He said that the US officials don’t deny that despite the imposition of more than 600 new sanctions in the field of oil and petrochemical products exports, today we are witnessing a jump in the oil exports and collecting the related revenues; adding “the country is nearing the pre-sanctions period, without having any problem in collecting its dues”, he said in his address to the parliament.

Owji boasted that when compared with three years ago, now the country’s oil exports have risen by threefold and making foreign exchange revenues are on the rise.

He further noted: “with regard to the initiatives had already been taken by Martyr Raisi in the domain of oil industry activities, especially with regard to oil exports and petrochemical products, as the minister of petroleum of the Islamic Republic of Iran I would like to announce publicly that no government in the U.S will be able to stand in the way of Iran’s oil exports, regardless of who will take power.”

Concerning natural gas, I would like to announce here that over the past three years, natural gas production has gone up by more than 50 million cubic meters per day by boosting extraction from the shared gas field of South Pars, he said.

Collecting associated gases is 10-time more when compared with three years ago while oil refining capacity is up by 270 thousand barrels per day during the period. Owji noted.

According to him, over the past three years, natural gas storage capacity has risen by 40 percent, LPG exports have doubled while 50 towns, 6700 villages, 21 thousand industrial units and 22 power plants have been connected to the nationwide gas supply network, which has caused oil sector’s economic growth ranks first among other sectors for 3 consecutive years.

Today, half of the country’s economic growth comes from the oil sector's performance, so the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) announced that the oil sector’s economic growth stood at 20 percent, above all other sectors, the minister of petroleum said.

Likewise, 155 upstream and downstream sectors half-finished projects, worth 34 billion dollars, have been completed during the past three years by relying on domestic capabilities including South Pars gas field phase 11 development, which Total was slated to develop it with 4.5 billion dollars in investment; a project that the French company left it undeveloped after that then president of the U.S, Donald Trump started imposition of new sanction against Iran.