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Iran’s oil and gas sector’s vulnerability to sanctions is ’debatable’.
Iran’s total oil income in the first half of 2008 was $54 billion, only $3 billion shy of its oil income for 2007.
Deputy Oil Minister for Planning Akbar Torkan recently said that Iran plans to invest $16 billion in its energy sector in the year to March 2009--an amount greater than the average investment of $12 billion invested over the past three years.
“We are using our domestic capacity instead of foreign funds, which today are not so available to us,“ Torkan said.
Iranian officials point out that the US-led sanctions have had considerable costs to Iran but that they have not been able to cripple the country’s energy sector.
Najaf Pezeshkian, an adviser at the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company, an oil-services firm in Tehran, estimates that sanctions have increased the company’s costs by as much as 30 percent, for example.
Some observers say American companies banned from operating in Iran by the US administration may end up being the biggest losers as the result of sanctions against Iran.
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