TEHRAN (FNA)- Raising the oil production capacity will lead to boosting Iran’s bargaining power in the energy markets, a deputy oil minister said.


Addressing a meeting on oil industry strategies, Iranian Deputy Oil Minister for Planning and Supervision on Hydrocarbon Resources Mansour Moazammi said development of oil industry will be followed by speeding up development in other sectors of the economy.

Presenting the latest figures on oil and gas reserves around the world and prominent place of the Middle East and OPEC countries in the world energy markets, Moazszami said, "The Middle East region plays an important and strategic role in supplying energy needs."

"Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran and Iraq sit atop the largest proven oil reserves with holding respectively 17.8, 13.3, 10.4, 9.4 and 9 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves, which are mainly members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)."

"For example, Saudi Arabia with 265 million barrels of proven oil reserves plays a great role not only in stabilizing the market but also sometimes in destabilizing it," he said.

"[High] production capacity boosts the oil producing countries bargaining power so if we want to play a role in OPEC we should raise our oil production capacity potentials which in turn will be followed by raising actual oil production," the official said.

Moazzami criticized Iraqi behavior in oil market after sanctions imposed against Iran especially in dealing with Iran’s traditional customers adding ‘while the two countries are neighbors and at the same time members of OPEC, these kinds of behaviors are unacceptable’.

Referring to the world top-ranking oil companies achievements in oil and gas, he said, "Development and promoting the capabilities of human resources, taking into consideration environmental standards in organizational and operational processes, deploying up to date technologies with the aim of optimizing value chain, development of financial resources, improving quality and competitiveness are among the main ways for development and prompting the place of the oil industry."

Holding 9.4 percent of oil reserves and 17 percent of gas reserves of the world is an advantage for the country, the official said adding the cost of production of hydrocarbon in Iran is lower in comparison to many other countries as the country enjoys competitive advantage in petrochemical industry.

He referred to imposed sanctions in the fields like investment, services, technology, trade against Iran, dominance of industrial countries and transnational companies on new technologies and restrictions on the way of having access to capital as the main threats that should be taken into account.

Elsewhere in his remarks, said, "Investment and participation of well-known oil companies in [oil and gas projects] is a good way for facing the threats."

Moazzami said that despite existence of sanctions, we should enter into negotiations with the international oil companies even though it does not mean that we should give up our values or positions.

He concluded that booting production capacity, deploying state-the-art technologies in upstream and downstream, streamlining the apparatus, reforming the structures and training world -class managers and experts as well as active participation in energy trade are the other requirements for overcoming existing challenges in oil industry.

By Fars News Agency

 

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