Tehran Times reported that Iran will issue IRR 10 trillion in bonds to finance the South Pars gas field development projects.

Mr Mousa Souri MD of Pars Oil and Gas Company said that the gas field’s output will be increased to 800 million cubic meters per day from 300 million cubic meters once all the phases of the development plan come on stream.

Mr Mousa said that the Iranian oil industry can be developed more through channeling people’s financial assets into projects. Some USD 40 billion to USD 50 billion should be invested annually in the oil sector.

He referred to buy back and issuing bonds as the methods of financing oil projects. In July, Iran’s central bank opened USD 10 billion line of credit for several upstream domestic oil projects. Projects will also be funded by using 18% of the National Development Fund’s assets, selling USD 10 billion of foreign currency bonds and 15 trillion of rial denominated bonds and by selling USD 10 billion worth of shares in Oil Ministry properties.

Iran puts 20% of its oil revenues into the development fund, which will reach USD 55 billion by the end of the Iranian year on March 20th 2013. The South Pars gas 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 total world reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas.

Source - Tehran Times

(www.steelguru.com)