Iran signed on Monday a total of 13 oil contracts with 14 domestic firms, which will raise the Islamic Republic’s oil production capacity by 185,000 barrels per day, the oil ministry’s news service Shana reported.

According to Reza Dehghan, Deputy Director for Development and Engineering Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the new contracts will enhance and maintain oil production in Iran, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported.

The 13 deals are worth a total of US$1.78 billion (1.527 billion euro), and were awarded by the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) and the National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC) to 14 Iranian companies as contractors, Shana reported.

Two of the deals are for offshore projects – for the Resalat and Forouzan oilfields – while the other 11 contracts are for projects in Iran’s southern oilfields, according to ISNA.

At the signing ceremony for the contracts, Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said that OPEC had done well in managing the oil market in recent months.

“The price of Brent crude oil has risen from about $16 per barrel in May to $45 and it is almost stabilized; this shows that OPEC has performed well in this regard,” the oil ministry quoted Zangeneh as saying.

Last month, Iran signed a US$1.3-billion deal with domestic companies to double the production capacity at the massive Azadegan oilfield, expecting the rise in production to boost its oil revenues by US$1 trillion, Iranian officials said at the signing ceremony. At the Iranian field, production capacity is expected to more than double in 30 months, to 320,000 bpd from 140,000 bpd currently, and from just 45,000 bpd back in 2013.

According to Zanganeh, improving the Azadegan oilfield’s recovery factor by 10 percent would boost the total production of the field by 2.7 billion barrels, which means Iran could get US$1 trillion in additional oil revenues in the future, the Tehran Times reported in July.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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