Iran's energy sector review

Oil prices plunging by half during the second half of 2014, and continuance of the drop in January, as well as disappointing estimations about the long-standing glut in oil markets, imply a bad year ahead for Iran. Iran decreased its reliance on oil revenues in the government budget from above 40 percent to 31.5 percent, but this even seems overly optimistic. A barrel of oil in the budget bill is put at $72 while currently each OPEC crude oil basket is sold at $34.24/barrel. Iranian parliament amended the construction budget, pushing it down by $2.1 billion and decreased the share of the National Development Fund from oil revenues from 30 percent to 20 percent on Jan.27. According to the bill, it's expected that 1 million barrels per day (mb/d) of crude oil and 300,000 barrels per day of gas condensate are to be exported during next fiscal year, which will start on March 21. According to the International Monetary Fund's latest report on the Middle East and Central

Iran could resume the gas condensate and petrochemical exports to abow the pre-sanctions level. The country exported over $12 billion worth of gas condensate, as well as $12.771 billion worth of petrochemical products during ten months of the current fiscal year [March 21, 2014 – Jan.21], according to the Customs Administration's latest monthly report, released Jan.24. The report said Iran exported 16.5 million metric tons of natural gas condensate during the last ten months, or averagely, 452,000 barrels per day, which indicates a 41.35 percent increase year-to-year. The figures for the last month are quite astounding. The country exported 3.078 million metric tons of gas condensate, or 861,000 barrels per day for $97/barell, according to the report. There is no any international report about Iran's crude oil and condensate exports from Jan.1 to Jan.21, but it was estimated that Iran's crude oil and condensate exports as of December 2014 were 1.1 million barrel

With the exception of crude oil, petroleum products and gas export, Iran's total exports (including gas condensate, NGLs) reached $42.6 billion, about one billion US dollar less than total imports during the first ten months of fiscal year. Iran's fiscal year started on March 21, 2014. According to the Custom Administration's monthly reports, cereals shared about 14 percent of the country's total imports, while industrial, agriculture and metal imports accounted for 50 percent of total imports. Some $22 billion of Iran's imports included those commodities that experienced a significant drop in value along with the oil price plunge. The World Bank released a report Jan.22 saying that the three industrial commodity price indices – energy, metals and minerals, and agricultural raw materials – experienced near identical declines between early 2011 and the end of 2014, of more than 35 percent each, and will continue to contract this year. Metals and minera