Azerbaijan, Baku, May 09/ Trend F.Milad/
The Iranian administration has approved 16 oil projects with the allocated budget of $16 billion plus 70 trillion rials ($5.7 billion) in the past calendar year which ended on March 19, the Shana News Agency quoted an official with the Oil Ministry as saying.
Supplying gas, developing joint oilfields, building petrochemical units and establishing drilling rigs were among the approved projects, Mohsen Khojastemehr said.
The required budget will be provided through selling bonds and attracting foreign investment, he noted.
First vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi has said that Iran is one of the safest and most independent countries in the world for those who are interested in investing in oil and gas industries.
The country has about 11 per cent of the world's oil and 17 per cent of its gas reserves and ranks first in the world in terms of the value of its hydrocarbon reserves, he added.
Some 10 trillion rials ($815 million) in bonds will be issued by May 20 for financing national oil projects, Ahmad Qalebani the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company said in April.
Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said in August 2011 that the Iranian government should consider plans for the development of joint oilfields in the border areas with Iraq.
The government should increase the budgets for the development of joint oilfields, Qasemi added. The oil industry's infrastructure needs more than 500 trillion rials (about $41 billion) of investment to achieve the objectives of the 20-Year Outlook Plan which ends in 2025, Qasemi was quoted as saying.
Iran has attached the priority on boosting gas production capacity from its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Qasemi noted.
Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to grow its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field.
The field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.