Minister Underlines Iran’s Strong Growth in Oil, Gas Sectors

Paknejad noted that the value added in the oil and gas extraction sector grew 6.2%, more than double Iran’s overall economic growth of 3%, adding that in the first half of the current Persian calendar year, Iran’s crude oil and condensate exports increased significantly compared with the same period last year.

The minister announced that Iran’s crude oil production capacity has reached 3.9 million barrels per day, while gas condensate capacity stands around 750,000 barrels per day.

He estimated Iran’s raw gas production capacity above 1 billion cubic meters per day, adding that production from joint oil fields has also risen, with an 80,000 bpd increase, outperforming the target of 56,000 bpd for last year.

Downstream performance exceeded expectations as well; gasoline and gasoil production reached 110 million and 115 million liters per day, respectively—both higher than planned.

Meantime, the minister warned that Iran faces serious financing constraints, noting that meeting the goals of the Seventh Development Plan will require about $190 billion in new financial resources.

He highlighted accelerated efforts to reduce gas flaring, saying that flaring-recovery projects—both short-term and long-term—have advanced, allowing Iran to recover 3.3 billion cubic meters of flare gas, more than double the plan’s 1.5-billion-cubic-meter target.

To address domestic gas shortages, particularly in industry, he said 24 oil fields and 34 gas fields have been offered to interested companies and investors to attract capital and boost production.

A senior member of Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical exporters union (OPEX) announced in October that the country exported $20 billion worth of oil products in the five months to late August.

Hamid Hosseini noted that the number shows that the exports have decreased from nearly $47 billion reported in the previous calendar year.

He added that Iran expects a fall in annual oil export revenues in the calendar year to late March amid lower international oil prices.

Hosseini said that oil exports from the country are expected to reach $43 billion in the year to March 20.

He stated that the total oil and petroleum product exports from Iran had reached nearly $60 billion in the year to late March.

Hosseini said that Iran had exported $20 billion worth of oil and petroleum products in the five months to late August, down more than 16% from the same period last year.

He said the fall in oil export revenues this calendar year has been a result of lower oil prices in international markets, adding that Iran has sold oil at an average price of $63.5 per barrel in the April-August period, which he said is shy of an annual budget target of $68 per barrel.

He added that oil export volumes had also declined from records of 1.8 million barrels per day reported in the last calendar year and in the early months of the current calendar year.

“Thus, there are concerns that oil revenue expected for this year’s budget could not be materialized,” the OPEX spokesman was quoted as saying during a news briefing.

Hosseini said that Iran’s exports of petrochemical and petroleum products, including asphalt, methanol, and some petrochemical products, had declined this calendar year because of an explosion in the country’s largest container port in late April, a 12-day war with the Israeli regime in June, as well as issues with the domestic supply and production of petroleum and petrochemical products.

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