Iran will need a $100bn investment to develop its gas sector and half of that will have to come from foreign producers, a senior executive with a national gas company told Bloomberg.
“We welcome and appreciate investment by companies; we welcome new technology,” said Azizollah Ramazani, international affairs director at National Iranian Gas Company.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Gas Conference in Paris, Ramazani said that Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Reza Araghi has met with international companies and a number of European oil giants at the conference, which took place during the first week of June.
“During the last 18 months we have had many discussions with foreign companies,” Ramazani who has been in charge of the talks said.
“In Paris, we met a lot of companies and they were very eager to have negotiations,” primarily from Europe, he added.
If Western sanctions on Iran are eased and a final agreement on its nuclear programme is reached, the oil producer could to increase gas exports sevenfold to 200mn cubic meters a day in four years, said Ramazani.
Production would rise to 1.2bn cubic meters a day in five years, from 800mn currently, he added.
