lucrative contracts with foreign investors on way

TEHRAN, Oct. 18 (MNA) – Iran's deputy oil minister, while pointing to Saudi Arabia's possible plans to obstruct foreign investment in Iran's oil industry, noted numerous advantages of the industry and announced a number of lucrative oil contracts will be soon inked with foreign investors. Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia touched upon Saudi Arabia’s possible plans to cause interference in investment attraction to oil, gas and petrochemical industries of Iran during the post-JCPOA era; “under the assumption that Saudis are seeking obtrusion in the process, it needs to be announced that Iran enjoys numerous advantages as regards encouragement of new investment.” The official underlined that various advantages in the country’s oil and gas industry would counteract any possible involvement on the part of Saudi Arabia; “accordingly, there remains no concerns as negotiations with domestic and foreign investors are underway in all fields.” In response to a question on Saudi Arabia’s intention to offer some shares of SABIC and Saudi Aramco companies to the global stocks market, Zamaninia asserted “in the coming months, major and significant news will be released on Iran’s oil industry which will thwart all plans pursued by external sources to meddle in Iranian industries.” “Several major investment contracts will be soon inked in the oil industry of Iran,” highlighted the oil official reiterating that negotiations are continuing smoothly. Meanwhile, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has recently touched upon the plans to attract investment in oil industry during the post-JCPOA era explaining “the Sixth National Development Plan requires that 134 billion dollars of financial resources be absorbed in the upstream petroleum sector.” He pointed to the plan to attracting around 52 billion dollars of financial resources in petrochemical industries recalling “a 15-billion-dollar investment has been envisaged for expansion of Iran’s refinery industry while an aggregate total of about 200 billion dollars need to be attracted to the country’s oil, gas and petrochemical industries.” In time with Iran’s plan to attract 60 billion dollars of investment in petrochemical industries during the post sanction arena, Saudi Arabia has formulated a new plot to get in the way of investment attraction to the Iranian industry. On that account, given the decline in global oil prices and the consequent reduction in prices of polymer and petrochemical products around the world, SABIC Chemical manufacturing company, as the second largest state-owned company in Saudi Arabia has turned into a barrier to arrival of foreign investors in Iranian industries. In other words, the Saudi company has put its assets on auction and is implementing projects for direct production of petrochemicals in order to attract multinational investors to the Arab country’s petchem industry.