Ali Kardor
, Managing Director,NIOC
Post-sanctions Iran is emerging from commercial isolation and is aggressively pursuing its economic ambitions, particularly in the oil and gas market. The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) lies right at the centre of this campaign and Ali Kardor is leading the charge. The 62-year-old executive has been serving at NIOC since 1984 and was promoted in June last year from being the finance director to succeed Roknoddin Javadi as the managing director.
Under his watch, the NIOC has been growing in leaps and bounds – the company has significantly raised oil production, with output presently at around 3.9mn bpd. Kardor has recently said that output from NIOC’s key assets in Azar, South Azadegan and Yaran Oilfields will soon increase by 15,000, 45,000 and 10,000 bpd respectively and moreover has announced initial production from the huge South Pars offshore field, from which output is touted to grow to 35,000 bpd soon.
More importantly, with Kardor at the helm, the NIOC has been actively exploring for reserves within the country, inviting and partnering with key IOCs, and increasing exports to long-time customers and winning new ones. While Iran hopes to raise its oil exports to customers in Europe to 800,000 bpd within the coming months, it has recently unseated Iraq to become the No.2 oil supplier to the vast consumer market of India. It is likely that Kardor will utilise the Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC) as an instrument to lead the NIOC into collaborations with more Asian and European oil and gas majors to develop the upstream sector at home.
