New NIOC chief vows to shake up sector in face of US sanctions
Newly-appointed National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) managing director Seifollah Jashnsaz is to prioritise better management of the country's hydrocarbon resources.
This will include more efficient exploitation of reservoirs including the use of gas injection and the development of offshore fields shared with neighbouring countries.
Jashnsaz, who has headed National Iranian South Oil Company (Nisoc) a NIOC subsidiary since early 2006, was appointed by Oil Minister Gholamhossain Nozari at the weekend.
Nozari, who ran NIOC until his own elevation to the ministry in late 2007, had recently indicated to Upstream that he might keep his old post.
Jashnsaz takes over as the state oil company faces widening economic sanctions imposed by the US and other Western countries.
Two rounds of UN Security Council sanctions imposed since December 2006, designed to pressure Iran into freezing its nuclear programme, have also helped to slow foreign participation in Iran's energy sector. The UN may soon decide on a third round.
Before heading Nisoc, Jashnsaz ran National Iranian Drilling Company.
He is known as a tough manager, and claims to have exceeded production capacity targets set for Nisoc in the past two years.
Nisoc is responsible for the bulk of Iran's crude output, accounting for more than 3.2 million barrels per day of national production, and averaging about 4 million bpd in recent years.
The other NIOC subsidiaries making up the balance of output are Iranian Offshore Oil Company and Central Iranian Oil Fields Company.
Jashnsaz told Upstream last year that he supports foreign investment in the oil and gas sector, while welcoming sanctions as a way of "forcing us to create our own manufacturing capacity".
Jashnsaz and other Nisoc officials, who have long argued that local companies should be given preference in developing oil and gas resources, welcomed the company's effective takeover of the giant Azadegan oilfield, after the reduction of a 75% shareholding by Japan's Inpex to 10% more than two years ago.
Jashnsaz is one of the managers in the southern oilfields who have risen to high positions since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the country's president in 2005, and Nozari's takeover of NIOC.
He headed NIOC's reconstruction effort in the south of the country during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, when oil and gas facilities suffered severe damage from Iraqi air attacks and artillery shelling.
Jashnsaz also played an important role in various revolutionary bodies created after the 1979 revolution.
© Upstream 2008
