Addressing the 6th Drilling Congress and Exhibition in Tehran on Saturday, Houshang Falahatian, the deputy petroleum minister for planning, said shifting policies from an economy dependent on petrodollars to an oil-based economy was one of the approaches taken by Iran in macro-decision making of the oil industry.

He said development of onshore fields including Azar as well as offshore fields like South Pars gas field were top on the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum’s agenda, Shana reported on Saturday.

Falahatian further touched on the issue of domestic manufacturing of widely-used items in the oil industry, adding 51 contracts with a total value of €597 million and Rls. 4,330 billion had been signed with the domestic private sector developers in this regard.

This year’s event includes 30 specialist panels, 5 workshops and over 100 presentations and lectures on the dimensions and requirements of projects on enhancement and maintenance of production from the technical, financial, legal, contractual, insurance and risk management viewpoints.

Moreover, reviewing business strategies in exploration and production companies, general contractors, drilling companies, and technical services is top on the agenda of the congress.

Behzad Mohammadi said Monday that NPC was preparing a preliminary draft for issuance of bonds in foreign currencies and rials to be approved by the government in a bid to help resolve some of the financial problems of under-construction petrochemical projects.

“There have been various meetings on this issue with the Ministry of Petroleum and we are about to reach a final decision,” he added.

Mohammadi pointed out that Iran’s petrochemical industry was a priority of the country’s economy, and said “about Rls. 760 trillion was the petrochemical industry’s turnover back in 2016, which is the first priority in the country’s economic development in relation to other industries including petroleum products, automobiles and other industries.”

The NPC CEO further pointed to 64 million tons/year of installed capacity in Iran’s petrochemical industry in 2017, adding 53.6 million tons was produced in that the calendar year of 1396 (ended on March 20, 2017) which was equivalent to 84 percent of the production capacity of the sector.

Of the 53.6 million tons of petrochemicals produced in that year, 30.7 million tons were sold on the stock market or were exported, and the rest were exchanged between domestic petrochemical plants.