Iran’s veteran oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, plans to retire when President Hassan Rouhani’s term ends in August following June elections.
After serving as oil minister for the entirety of former president Mohammad Khatami’s time in office between 1997 and 2005, Zanganeh (who turns 69 next month) is coming to the end of his second eight-year term as oil minister. The former energy minister has nearly thirty years of experience in key ministerial positions. His extensive knowledge and diverse experience has earned him the moniker of “sheikh of ministers” in the Iranian press.
However, Zanganeh is thought to be stepping down at a crucial time for Iran’s oil industry as it looks to recover from more than three years under some of the toughest US sanctions ever imposed, which at some point removed more than 2mn b/d of Iran’s oil from the market and forced its production to below 2mn b/d — a level not seen since the start of the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s.
“Even if they nominated me for the presidency, I would not accept it, let alone for the [oil] ministry,” Zanganeh said today. “I will retire from government activities.”
But despite stepping down from his ministry position, he said he would “remain in politics,” just without a formal post. “Politics is like life — you cannot really disengage from it.”
Iran sits on the world’s 4th largest proven oil reserves and was the 8th producing nation last year with 3,535 barrels per day, according to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The country’s production has staged a recovery since December, reaching 2.35mn b/d in April — the highest since May 2019 — as Iran looks to take full advantage of the change in the US administration.
Under President Joe Biden, the US has been in indirect talks with Iran since the start of April to resume US participation in the 2015 deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and bring with it a lifting of US sanctions on Iran that were imposed under the Trump administration. Trump also reimposed punishing sanctions on Tehran, including preventing it from selling oil and depriving it of a key revenue for its ailing economy.
According to Iran’s vice-president, Eshaq Jahangiri, “Iran could raise its oil exports — crude and condensate — to 2.5mn b/d once the sanctions are lifted, from below 1mn b/d today.”
The presidential election that will be held on June 18, will be held to choose the successor to President Hassan Rouhani, who has served two four-year terms in office.
