TEHRAN – The Iranian parliament (Majlis) has allowed the country’s central bank to allocate $10 billion of its assets overseas to fund domestic oil projects, IRNA reported on Friday.
The sum will be spent in upstream oil and gas sector, which is also commonly known as the exploration and production sector.
Iran will have a new, attractive investment model for oil contracts by September, its president and oil minister told some of the world's top oil executives in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, part of its drive to win back Western business.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said their new administration was keen to open up to Western investments and technology, executives who attended the meeting said. They also stressed the importance of fossil fuel, with global energy demand rising.
On the sidelines of OPEC’s ministerial meeting in Vienna in early December 2013, Zanganeh said Tehran would like to see seven oil giants, including France’s Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Norway’s Statoil, Italy’s Eni and British Petroleum as well as U.S. Exxon and Conoco make investment in the Islamic Republic’s energy sector once the international sanctions are lifted.
"We will do anything necessary to get back Iran's share in the oil market," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by the Shana news agency in October 2013. "Contacts have been made [with foreign energy companies] to that effect and all of them are willing to return."
Iran holds the world's third-largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves, and plans to use foreign companies for various oil and gas related projects.
The country's total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of extractable oil.
By Tehran Times
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