Iran's energy sector review

The China National Offshore Oil Corp (SINOC) has announced readiness to restart working on development of Iran's North Pars gas field five years after Iran threatened to cancel the contract due to the Chinese company's repeated delays, the ISNA News Agency said in a report on Monday. SINOC signed a $16 billion contract in 2007 to develop both the upstream and downstream sections of the North Pars gas field, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reports. SINOC then took no action to start developing North Pars. Discovered in 1965, the North Pars gas field is 120 kilometers east of the port city of Bushehr in the Persian Gulf. After waiting for five years, Iran announced that SINOC's contract would be canceled. Now SINOC said that it wants to develop the field. Pars Oil and Gas Company's managing director Mousa Souri says that Iran's Oil Ministry agrees that a contract will be signed. Meanwhile the fate of Phase 11 of Iran's joint South Par...

Unveiling the final result of Iranian parliamentary election indicates apparently victory of Ahmadinejad's rivals, but it's only an apparent feature, not more. According to the results, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's camp " United Front of Conservatives ", whose candidates oppose president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won 120 seats, while Ahmadinejad's allies under the flag of "Front of stability of the Islamic Revolution" coalition won only 75 seats. However, regarding the fact that some of the candidates belong to both coalitions, then, there are some Ahmadinejad's allies in United Front of Conservatives' list. Also, about 40 independent candidates joined the parliament, whom the United Front of Conservatives refused to add their names to this coalition's list before and they are likely to make coalition with Ahmadinejad's allies. Front of stability of the Islamic Revolution can attract some new indepe...

The Integration Committee of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) has approved some details of Ahmadinejad government's proposed current year budget bill. The ratification of the months -delayed submitted budget bill to the Iranian parliament has been under discussion while it passed a month from the beginning the Iran's new solar year (started on March 20). The Integration Committee approved a 4.040 million daily oil output and set a price of $85 per a barrel in the budget yesterday. Setting $85 per a barrel in budget bill is logical, but there are serious doubts on Iran's ability to produce above four million barrels oil per day. According to OPEC statistics, Iran's oil output dropped to 3.424 mbpd in March 2012, indicating a decrease of 631, 000 barrels compared to 2008. Most of Iran's oil fields are on their second half life and according to official statements, the production level from existing producing oil wells decreases by 300,000 barrels annually. On the other...

To resolve its concerns on Iran's nuclear programme the West has to separate technical nuclear issues from other political-security subjects, Trend Agency's Iran Service Department Chief Dalga Khatinoglu told Mehr news Agency during an interview on Tuesday. The success of the Istanbul talks held between Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) could mean the nuclear issue is resolvable in case if the sides can focus on Iran's nuclear activities, without politicizing them, Khatinoglu said. In a rare case, both the West and Iran recognized nuclear talks over Iran's nuclear program, that had been suspended for 15 months because of lacking mutual understanding between the parties, as "positive". The talks were held on April 14 in Istanbul. According to Khatinoglu's pointview, after Iran's complete cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), lifting some of the sanctions against Iran would be reasonab...

Defining a permanent and upgradeable nuclear talks' framework between Iran and the West countries may take a long time, but despite the complicacy of issue, achieving "constructive understanding and positive atmosphere in negotiations" called so both by Iran and P5+1 is a significant opportunity - maybe a pathway to lead to a big deal - for resolving Iran's disputed nuclear program. What happened during yesterday talks between Iran and six major powers headed by Iranian Supreme Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton? Ahston recognized Iran's right to peaceful nuclear activities in framework of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and Iran promised to keep talks with P5+1 seriously to eliminate the concerns over alleged military dimension of its nuclear program. It would take a lot of time to define upgradeable framework as I said, but as a first step Iran can suspend enriching 20-percent uranium for a while in exchan...

Iran says it's preparing to construct more nuclear power plants that work on enriched uranium, while the U.S. and its allies set to demand an end to high-level uranium enrichment and the closure of a facility built deep under a mountain at Fordo site. After a 15 month suspension, Iran and 5+1 contries (Russia, China, the UK, The U.S., France + Germany) agreed to hold new round of negotiations over Iran's nuclear program in Istanbul. Iran says the negotiations planned to be held in two rounds, if Istanbul talks be progressive, the second round of talks will be held in Baghdad. The New York Times on Saturday cited U.S. and European diplomats, who said the U.S. and other Western nations planned to demand that Iran immediately closed and ultimately dismantle a recently completed nuclear facility under a mountain near the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Qom. This precondition seems to be apparently fair, because Iran planned to produce 20 percent-enriched uranium for Amirabad nuclea...

Turkey, which has been playing the role of a mediator in Iran's nuclear program in recent years, became the object of dissatisfaction for Iran. Iranian officials disapprove of the meeting of the "Friends of Syria" held in Turkey on April 1. In fact, this group should be renamed as the "enemies of Syria", Deputy Chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Esmaeel Kosari told Trend. Chairman of Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani called the conference as "a bribe to Israel" from its participants. Turkey has announced the purchase of about 1 million tonnes of oil from Libya the following day, reducing oil purchases from Iran by 20 percent. Iran's Secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council Mohsen Rezaee noted that friendly relations between Iran and Turkey are under question after this act and also considers that the next meeting between the "six powers" and Iran on its nuclear program should be ...