Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has expressed optimism about the return of international oil giants to the country.
On Saturday, Zanganeh pointed to Iran’s ongoing negotiations over the resumption of operations by international energy firms in the Islamic Republic, saying that the Iranian Oil Ministry is optimistic about the return of giant foreign oil and gas companies.

He also slammed Washington over its policies against Tehran and said, “So far, due to the US obstructionism, Iran has not been able to utilize its maximum production capacity for safe and easy supply in the oil market.”

According to the Iranian Oil Ministry, the country requires about USD 70 billion of investment in upstream and downstream industries, 30 percent of which is related to downstream industries.

World oil giants, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP), Malaysia’s Petronas, Spain’s Repsol, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni, have shown interest in returning to the Iranian market following a partial relief in the anti-Iran sanctions that has come after a November 2013 deal between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, Britain, France, China and Russia – plus Germany.

Iran also sits atop one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves of over 33 trillion cubic meters and, in the near future, the country is set to increase it gas processing and transfer capacity to one billion cubic meters per day from the current level of 600 million cubic meters per day.

By Press TV

 

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