Economy

Tehran, Damascus sign document on boosting economic co-op (Tehran Times – 27 May 2017)

 Iran and Syria signed a document on enforcement of economic cooperation in Damascus on Thursday, IRNA reported.

The document was penned by Syrian Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Mohammad Samer al-Khalil and Head of Iran’s Expanding Economic Cooperation Committee Saieed Ohadi.

“During the held two-day meeting on increasing mutual cooperation, all the commerce and economic issues regarding the signed document as well as increasing joint investments and bilateral cooperation were explored,” Samer al-Khalil told reporters after signing the document.

He also informed that a Syrian delegation will visit Tehran next week to explore avenues of further collaboration.

 

Continued Backing for Production, Employment (Financial tribune _ 27 May 2017)

The Iranian banking system will continue to support production and employment in the current fiscal year as it did last year, says the chief executive of Bank Melli Iran.”Even though it had been predicted that 7,500 production units would receive credit from the banks during the previous year, the number actually reached 25,000,” Mohammad Reza Hossein-Zadeh was also quoted as saying by the official website of BMI. From a total of 170 trillion rials ($4.5 billion) in loans allocated to the small- and medium-sized enterprises last year in line with resuscitating them, “more than 30 trillion rials ($800 million)” were provided by Bank Melli Iran. According to Hossein-Zadeh, BMI and the banking network in general will focus on “unfinished production units and seeing them to completion”.

 

 

 

 

 

Oil&Gas

South Pars 2nd development stage requires $20-30b (Tehran Times – 27 May 2017)

Development of South Pars gas field (in the Persian Gulf) in the second stage is estimated to require $20-30 billion fund,  Mohammad Meshkinfam, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC), which is in charge of developing the gas field, told ILNA.

“It is our initial estimation of the required fund, but it depends on the type of planning and anyway we should take benefit of the foreign capabilities for the second stage”, he also noted.

He said: “We are also planning to improve domestic capabilities to become fully prepared for the implementation of the next development stage.”
South Pars is divided into 24 standard phases of development in the first stage. Most of the phases are fully operational at the moment.

 

Oil output capacity seen rising 25% in 5 years: Zanganeh (Tehran Times – 27 May 2017)

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has said he sees the country adding 25 percent to its oil production capacity in the next five years. Development of new fields as well as improved oil recovery from mature reservoirs should allow the country to have the capacity to pump about five million barrels per day (bpd), he added. He made the remarks in an interview with Reuters on the sidelines of the 172nd official OPEC meeting which was held in Vienna on May 25. Iran is currently producing four million bpd.

The country is also going to ink deals with oil majors this year to help reaching its planned goals for the oil industry. “Hopefully this year Iran will sign oil deals with France’s Total, Russia’s Lukoil as well as Danish Maersk and maybe Indonesia’s Pertamina.” Iran sees no limitations in negotiation with the U.S. oil companies and these companies are limited by the laws of the United States Congress, Shana reported.