Denied funding by years of U.S. imposed sanctions, more recently strengthened by UN restrictions over the country's nascent nuclear energy program, Iran's energy sector is in need of massive capital investment.
Iran's newly appointed Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi stated that $40 billion was needed for the development of Iran's oil and gas fields, noting, "Considering the extensive area of the joint (oil and natural gas) fields, their development needs heavy investment; therefore, the task can be accomplished by securing the capital from domestic as well as foreign sources. Definitely a part of the needed resources will be secured from the country's general budget, but for the remaining part we will explore domestic sources that include the private sector and the banking system," The Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Qasemi added that in order to raise the necessary capital Iran would be issuing a "great volume of various bonds" this year to help finance the projects.
On 3 August Iran's Parliament confirmed Rostam Qasemi, head of the engineering arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, by a vote of 216 to 22, with seven abstentions. Qasemi, a veteran of Iran's war with Iraq in the 1980s, is chief of the Revolutionary Guards' Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters.
By. Joao Peixe, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com
Joao is a writer for Oilprice.com More