Iran optimistic about return of oil giants: Zanganeh
PRESSTV (Iran) Sun Jun 22, 2014 5:0AM GMT
http://presstv.com/detail/2014/06/22/368060/iran-optimistic-about-return-of-oil-firms/

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has expressed optimism about the
return of international oil giants to the country.

On Saturday, Zanganeh pointed to Iran’s ongoing negotiations over the
resumption of operations by international energy firms in the Islamic
Republic, saying that the Iranian Oil Ministry is optimistic about the
return of giant foreign oil and gas companies.

He also slammed Washington over its policies against Tehran and said, “So
far, due to the US obstructionism, Iran has not been able to utilize its
maximum production capacity for safe and easy supply in the oil market.”

According to the Iranian Oil Ministry, the country requires about USD 70
billion of investment in upstream and downstream industries, 30 percent of
which is related to downstream industries.

World oil giants, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP),
Malaysia’s Petronas, Spain’s Repsol, Russia’s second-largest oil producer,
Lukoil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni, have shown interest in returning to
the Iranian market following a partial relief in the anti-Iran sanctions
that has come after a November 2013 deal between Iran and the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council – the US, Britain, France, China and
Russia – plus Germany.

Iran also sits atop one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves of over
33 trillion cubic meters and, in the near future, the country is set to
increase it gas processing and transfer capacity to one billion cubic meters
per day from the current level of 600 million cubic meters per day.

ASH/HSN/SS