Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.10 / Trend R.Zamanov
Oil ministry plans to revise contracts in order to increase the recovery rate of the country's active oil and gas fields, the Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.
"Iran's current gas output level is not satisfactory," the IRNA News Agency quoted Zanganeh as saying.
"We can't increase the volume of gas production or imports, so the only option available is to increase the output of liquid fuel to meet domestic demands," he added.
"With long-term plans we can increase the country's gas output," Zanganeh said.
It was previously announced that Iran plans to adjust country's oil contracts in order to "make them contracts more attractive to foreign companies".
Iran is in dire need of money and financial resources and can't afford paying the expenses of giant projects in the energy sector, so it needs the money of domestic and foreign private companies to carry out the projects.
Iran's oil and oil products exports, which accounts for over 80 percent of the country's total exports, have faced a falling trend in the past two years.
The country's oil exports was around 2.2 million barrels per day in 2011 but the figure has fallen to below one million brrels.
Due to sanctions against the country, Tehran is not able to receive its oil revenues in any currency. Therefore it can just import legal goods from the destination country in exchange for the exported oil.
Iran's gas condensates exports also faced a 26 percent decrease in the mentioned period, while the country's petrochemical products exports fell by 40 percent.
Several oil and gas projects in Iran has been halted (or their progress is realy slow) due to fiancial problems or lack of technology. The projects' expenses have increased sharply as well.
For example in the absence of foreign companies, it was estimated that the phases 11 to 24 of the giant South Pars gas field will come on stream at the cost of $40 billion.
But some $46 billion have been invested in the project so far while none of the phases are complete yet.
According to the former Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi another $30 billion should be invested in the project. Iran's oil projects are suffering same problems, as well.
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