Iran's energy sector review

Iran says a consortium of Iran's private sector companies will take on 20 percent of the country's total crude oil exports as international sanctions against the Iran's oil and banking sectors took effect on July 1. According to Mehr report, Oil Ministry and Central Bank have agreed to transfer the exports of some 500,000 barrels of crude oil (about 20 percent of Iran' total oil export) to the private sector as a way to circumvent the sanctions. With regarding this fact that Iran's private sector has never sold any oil, yet, then it's unclear that how can they succeed in organizing oil export, to ship, to get insurance and re-insurance, to get the money and the mechanism of transferring that to inside country. On the other hand, Iran has started offering oil in Kish Exchange since last year, but after 8 times failed attempts to sell crude oil, it withdrew from this plan. Hassan Khosrojerdi, the head of the Iranian Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Produc...

The oil inspection affairs department of the General Inspection Organization of Iran has reported that Iran is currently extracting less than 35,000 barrels of crude oil from the South Pars gas field's oil layer, while the Qatari side is exploiting as much as 450,000 barrels per day. The South Pars gas field is associated between Iran and Qatar. It holds around 30 trillion cubic meters of natural gas. It has an oil layer with an estimated reserve of 1.6 billion barrels with 30.3 deg. API with 1.9 percent sulphur. According to studies in 2005, the oil layer is divided into two sections, but the National Iranian Oil Company's exploration department rejected the theory in 2010 using existing geophysical surveys. The oil layer is jointly owned by Iran and Qatar. The 13-fold exploitation of Qatar compared to Iran from the oil layer means that reserves in the Iranian side will be flowing down into the southern section in Qatar in the long run. Maersk Oil Qatar AS Compa...

Iranian president told Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper on eve of new nuclear talks that Iran can halt 20 per cent-enriched uranium process if the West countries guarantee to supply all needed nuclear fuels for Iranian nuclear power plants. On the other hand, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani announced last week that Iran can decide for itself to what degree it wants to enrich uranium based on "domestic demands". He spoke on the eve of nuclear talks between Iran and the worlds' six major powers in Moscow. Iran and P5+1 negotiated the nuclear issue in Russia on Monday without result and want to keep talks going onTuesday. It seems Iran is preparing to compromise towards the West, but the coincidental issue is Iran's demand that its uranium enrichment rights be respected and accepted by the international community, as Ali Bagheri, deputy of Iran top nuclear negotiator suggested. Iran's demand is a disputed point because the UN Security Council has...

Iran announced on June 2 that it will introduce a nominee for the post of secretary general of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but a day later Iraqi deputy Prime Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said that Iran will support Samir Ghazban, the Iraqi nominee for the position. Mr. Shahristani told Bloomberg that Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi, in his recent talks with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, has voiced his support for the Iraqi nominee to take over the post of OPEC secretary general. Meanwhile, the IRNA News Agency quoted Qasemi on Sunday as saying that Iran will introduce its nominee for this position at the June 14th meeting. However, Iran has not officially declared its withdrawal from taking over the post of the OPEC secretary general. The Iranian oil minister reiterated on June 4th that the country will soon introduce a nominee for the position. Iraq is inexperienced in executive affairs in the OPEC and has only worked as formally part ...

After four rounds of negotiations between Iran and P5+1 in Turkey and Baghdad since April, the hopes of resolving concerns over Iran's disputed nuclear programme seems be paled as Iran rejected both allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspectors to visit the alleged nuclear blast chamber at Parchin military complex and halting 20 per cent uranium enrichment. The sides are preparing to launch a new round of talks in mod-June in Russia. What's been going? Maybe the wrong addresses published by outlets such as the U.S. readiness to recognise Iran's uranium enrichment rights for a 3.5 per cent level, or IAEA chief Yukia Amano's visit to Tehran that be taken as an Iranian government's compromise against the West to clarify its nuclear activities. The sanctions imposed by UNSC, EU and the U.S. are law and eliminating them while Iran puts the first precondition halting the sanctions, is impossible in the short term. Eliminating sanctions over...

Tehran's two-day negotiation with the International Atomic Energy Agency held at the office of the Iran envoy to IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh at least has not failed, but what was achieved? Soltanieh said that the nuclear talks were "constructive", while IAEA deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards, Herman Nackaerts, who had twice banned visits in January to the Iranian Parchin Military Base told reporters that "the two sides will meet again in Vienna on May 21 for more talks". Expanding the talks time shows that Iran-IAEA didn't achieved any framework method to cooperate on some disputed issues including defining a means to allow Agency inspectors to visit an iron container at Parchin, which is alleged to be aiding Iran to make high explosive tests and related to nuclear weapon production. This is quite a complicated issue, with regard to the fact that the six major powers and IAEA called on Iran to seriously consider all...

My latest interview with Germany's Deutsche Welle international broadcaster Iran has stated about launching the oil and gas extraction operations in Iran's sector of the Caspian Sea. Iran's oil minister Rostam Qasemi said earlier that the first "oil" torch will be sparked on the "Amir Kabir" platform (Alborz). However, in an interview with the German broadcasting company Deutsche Welle (DW), the experts differed in opinions on Iran's oil and gas extraction opportunities in the Caspian Sea. While saying that the "Alborz" platform is semi-submersible, Trend Persian news service head Dalga Khatinoglu emphasized that these platforms are used in field exploration. He said that stationary platforms are required for oil and gas extraction. It is surprising that Iran extracts oil or gas through this platform. Qasemi said that a field with gas reserves amounting to 50 trillion cubic feet (more than 1.4 trillion cubic meters) and ...