Iran Overview

Iran: An Economy Building Resilience

Iran holds the world’s second-largest natural gas reserves and its fourth-largest oil reserves. The country has been one of the world’s top oil producers for a century and has great potential to expand its gas output as most of its extensive reserves remain undeveloped.

Iran’s oil and gas industry is undergoing major changes. Under sanctions, oil exports were scaled back and many upstream projects involving IOCs were cancelled. Today, the National Iranian Oil Company is revving up production and has gradually returned Iran’s crude to the global market. In 2015, the country exported around 1.1 million bpd, a figure that rose to 2 million bpd by August 2016 and has remained at this level in 2017. Iran is seeking foreign investment to revamp and expand hydrocarbons operations and signed a landmark deal with Total in mid-2017. Fifty-two upstream projects were unveiled in late 2015, and new terms of investment in mid-2016.

In 2016, Iran produced 3.65 million bopd and, under the National Iranian Gas Company, 202.4 bcm of marketed natural gas. The government is planning five LNG facilities and new gas pipelines to support increased exports.  With 67 petrochemicals projects under way, Iran aims to double its 2015 capacity of 60 million tpy by 2020. The Oil & Gas Year Iran 2018 was released in 2018 in partnership with Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum.