Lifting of sanctions on Iran will allow the oil-rich country to become the number one energy player in the Middle East, top government officials said on Wednesday in a conference in Tehran.
“We have to use the foreign companies that will come to us after the removal of sanctions… to increase exports and access regional markets,” Zanganeh said in a speech at Iran’s 20th Oil, Gas, Refining and Petrochemical Fair.
“It is understandable that they left us during hard times. But we hope to prepare ourselves to work with them for a future in which we become the industry’s number one in the region.”
Since Western sanctions were imposed, Iran has had to rely on domestic oil companies and though this will continue, Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, also attending the event, said that Iran didn’t have any other option but to join the international production and distribution chain.
New contracts prepared by the oil ministry would lure energy majors back, he added.
“We expect that after presenting the models of the new agreements, which are based on the realities of the global energy market, they will be so attractive that it will bring the foreign investment.
“Iran is very determined that after a very short period of time after signing the nuclear agreement we can take back our position in the global oil industry,” Jahangiri added.
The Iranian oil ministry said that about 1,200 Iranian companies and 600 international businesses from 29 different countries including Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates registered for the four-day Tehran exhibition.
Under an interim agreement with P5 +1 enacted in January 2014, Iran has been allowed to maintain its crude oil exports at around 1.2mn bpd, which is less than half of what it was shipping in late 2011.
Production capacity is now around 2.7mn bpd but the ministry has said it could reach 4mn bpd within a few years.
