Iran's energy sector review

By Dalga Khatinoglu What a great thing, saying "I am adoring" in response to someone who asks "what do you do?" How pleasant to become "nobody" to possess a beloved. For me and everyone with knowledge of Persian and Azerbaijani neoclassic literature, deeply influenced by Platonic thought, understanding William Shakespeare's works are relatively easy because we are already acquainted with this world by poets like Hafez Shirazi, Saadi Shirazi, Attar Neishabouri, Omar Khayyam, Nizami Ganjavi, Mahammad Fuzuli, and above all of them, Jalal al-Din Rumi whose spiritual legacy and general theme can be summed up in one word: Passion. However, identifying with Shakespeare's plays and poems is very easy for anyone from any nation, because he didn't paint any portrait in spite of 34,895 speeches spoken by 1,223 characters in his plays. Rather, he presented a clear mirror in front of us, without any judgment either about his characters or us. W...

Iran's oil ministry on April 29 officially expelled China National Petroleum Corporation International (CNPCI) from South Azadegan oilfield's development project due a five-year delay in carrying out the project. Azadegan (Majnoon) - the joint field between Iran and Iraq- is the country's largest oil field with about 26 billion barrels proven reserves in Iranian side. The Iranian part of the field was discovered in 1999.Japan's Inpex Company carried out the exploratory studies but due to the Japanese firm's unwillingness, Iran signed the contract for the field's development plan with China. Iran, itself, invested in the field and started producing 25,000 barrels of oil per day from Azadegan in 2007. China's CNPCI signed a 2.5-billion dollar contract in 2009 to develop the field (the Chinese firm agreed to pay for 90 percent of the costs). But since then only 25,000 barrels of oil have been added to the field's production capacity. The field...

By Dalga Khatinoglu Official statistics show that gasoline consumption in Iran was nearly halved after a price hike on April 25. Iran's government increased gasoline price from 7,000 rials per a liter to 10,000 rials. Previously, when the Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration increased gasoline prices as part of the fist phase of subsidy reform plan in December 2010, the officials talked about a considerable cut in the country’s total consumption. The subsidy reform plan is aimed at realizing energy carriers' prices in the country. But does gasoline consumption really have anything to do with the prices? Studying the statistics of 2010, also previous and subsequent years proves that the consumption rate has nothing to do with the price. National Iranian Oil Refining & Distribution Company’s (NIORDC) official statistics show that the country’s gasoline consumption in the Iranian fiscal year to March 21, 2011 stood at 61.3 mi...