“This year, total investment made in the oil industry will jump to above USD 40 billion,” Qasemi said Tuesday, noting that Iran’s oil industry is powerfully leaving behind the sanctions.
The Iranian minister added that investment in Iran’s oil sector totaled USD 30 billion last Iranian year (ended March 19, 2012), saying that the figure stood at USD 13-15 billion a year before.
Qasemi stated that Iran must be producing 5.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, 1.4 billion cubic meters (mcm) per day of gas, and 100 million tons per day of petrochemicals by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2010-March 2015).
He noted that sanctions against Iran’s oil sector have failed to slow down the country’s oil industry projects.
“Despite recent pressures to impose ban on Iran’s oil, we have managed to get around these obstacles by making certain preparations.”
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors to prevent other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran. The sanctions entered into force in early summer 2012.
On October 15, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.
Western sanctions have been imposed on Iran based on the false allegation that Iran pursues military objectives in its nuclear energy program.
Iran rejects the claim noting that as a member of International Atomic Energy Agency and a committed signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty it is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
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