Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has changed 56 top managers in the oil industry across the national oil, gas, and petrochemical companies over 50 days since the start of his incumbency.
The highest number of changes has been taken place in the national gas company, according to the Mehr News Agency.
During the second term of Ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, some $46 billion was invested in the South Pars gas field. But, no one of the phases 11 to 24 came on stream. This is while the Ahmadinejad administration had predicted that $40 billion was needed to inaugurate all the incomplete phases of the South Pars. Meanwhile, Rostam Qasemi, the Ahmadinejad administration's oil minister of had said that in addition to the predicted $46 billion, $30 billion more was also needed to be invested in the gas field.
|
Current situation of South Pars phases |
||
|
Starting date |
Progress |
Phase |
|
- |
0 percent |
11 |
|
63 months |
92 percent |
12 |
|
40 months |
64 percent |
13 |
|
40 months |
50 percent |
14 |
|
75 months |
92 percent |
15 and 16 |
|
75 months |
82 percent |
17 and 18 |
|
40 months |
60 percent |
19 |
|
40 months |
51 percent |
20 and 21 |
|
40 months |
63 percent |
22, 23 and 24 |
Iran holds the biggest reserves of natural gas in the world, with 33.6 trillion cubic meters of deposit. Based on the annual report of U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Iran produced 153 billion cubic meters and consumed the same volume in 2012.
Natural gas holds a 59 percent share in Iran's fuel consumption basket.
Iran's dry gas output capacity in 1991 was a little more than 25 billion cubic meters per year. The figure increased to 103 billion cubic meters in 2005, when Ahmadinejad took office as Iran's president.
South Pars Gas field's production currently accounts for 35 per cent of the country's total gas output.
Iran's gas production increased by 140 million cubic meters per day during Mohammad Khatami's presidency (August 1997 - August 2005). The boost in output was mainly due to the inauguration of South Pars gas field's phases 1 to 5. Bijan Namdar Zanganeh was the country's oil minister back then.
Between 2005 to 2009 Iran's gross natural gas output increased by 245 million cubic meters per day. The increase was due to the completion of South Pars gas field's phases 6 to 10 and some fields in central parts of the country. About 60 per cent of the mentioned phases of South Pars gas field's development plan had been completed during Khatami's presidency.
In the last 3 years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency the country's gas production capacity increased by only 20 million cubic meters per day.
Zanganeh in March criticized the low efficiently of the 46-billion-dollars investment in South Pars. He told the Shargh Newspaper that, "During Khatami's period the cost of completion of each phase of South Pars was only one billion dollars, but currently some 3 to 4 billion dollars have been invested in each phase but none of them has come on stream yet."
Iran had invested a total amount of $15 billion in South Pars gas field (both upstream and downstream sectors) during Khatami's administrations.