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A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed during the meeting of Managing Director of French IFP Group Hussein Didier with the head of Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Hamidreza Katozian on Tuesday.

Head of the International Affairs Department of IFP Group Daniel Champlon also attended the ceremony to sign the MoU, Shana reported.

The MoU was based on eight fields of technology cooperation including upstream and downstream sectors, oil and gas reserves study, increase in the recovery, gas sweetening and reduction of pollution.

Pointing to increase in the recovery plan of Iran, Didier said IFP is ready to increase cooperation with RIPI to develop extraction of oil from complex reserves.

He expressed his satisfaction with conclusion of the MoU and hoped to remove the barriers in the way of collaboration in oil industry.

He also announced that IPF is ready to present educational services to RIPI.

Developing refinery ties with S. Korea

Also on Monday, managing director of Isfahan Oil Refinery said the facility has signed an MoU with South Korea's Daelim Company for improving production procedures and optimizing the facility.

Lotfali Chavoshi said that the process of improvement and optimization plan of the refinery will bring the facility to its golden days.

He said the MoU is an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract with Daelim's financing.

The CEO added that the plan will be carried out in a 4-year period with an investment of $2 billion.

In the project, Daelim will cooperate with Iranian contractors and National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company will serve as the operator, he added.

Once completed, the project will reduce the refinery's crude oil feedstock by 16,000 bpd, and its fuel oil output by 10 mlpd by adopting new production technologies.

Moreover, the facility's petrol output will rise by 8.5mlpd which will be one of the major achievements of the plan, he added.

Furthermore, enhanced production of LPG by 2.1 mlpd, promoted quality of products from Euro-2 to Euro-4 and Euro-5 which would be environment friendly, more efficiency in production activities, boosted revenues of the refinery, and reduction of emissions will be other benefits of the plan, he added.

Speaking to Shana, Farnaz Alavi, a member of NPC's board of directors, said Iran will add 50 to 60 million tons of petrochemicals to its annual production capacity by 2021.

"The Sixth Plan has envisaged an investment of $35 billion for implementing petrochemical projects and various means have been defined for drawing the amount whose success will depend on foreign investors as well as international credit lines," she said.

Alavi added that a certain portion of the output will be used as feedstock by supplementary facilities while 40 percent-50 percent will be sold on the domestic and international market as end products.

She had earlier said that the development plan has defined 28 petrochemical projects for direct financing by foreign investors.

Ever since the removal of the US-led sanctions on Iran's vital economic sectors in January 2016, the country is seeking to position itself as the region's top supplier of highly valued petrochemical items.

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Japan took in 308,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude in the period, 117,000 bpd more than what it imported a year earlier, the report said.

Iran sits on the fourth place behind Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar among the exporters of crude to Japan which brought in 3.32 million barrels per day (mbd) in May.

Saudi oil exports fell three percent in the period from a year earlier to 1.2 million barrels per day, according to the Japanese ministry data.

The report said Iran is seeking to raise its crude shipments and establish itself as the third exporter to Japan.

Japan was one of the key clients of Iranian oil with 338,000 bpd of imports before Western sanctions on the Islamic Republic in 2012. During years of the sanctions, the Asian country continued to import crude from Iran, though at limited volumes, under a preliminary nuclear agreement.

Iran hosted several leading Japanese companies in its oil and gas projects before the sanctions were imposed.     

After the removal of sanctions, Asian imports of Iranian oil have risen sharply. Iran's oil flows to Europe have also begun to pick up after a slow start.

Before 2012, Iran exported around 2.3 mbd, with more than half going to Asia, mainly China, South Korea, India and Japan.

Iran’s oil production has already hit the highest level in the past five years. Since December, Iran’s oil production has climbed by 740,000 barrels a day to 3.63 million in June.

On Monday, Mohsen Qamsari of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said the country has regained about 80 percent of the market share it held before 2012.

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The MoUs were signed at the presence of governors of Iran's Mazandaran Province and Italy's Marche Province on Thursday night, reported IRNA.

Marche Governor Luca Ceriscioli headed a 50-member trade delegation comprising 43 CEOs, manager of an Italian bank and chancellors of two Italian universities.

He said that regardless of the Western countries' dual policies, Italy is ready to boost cooperation in all fields.

During his trip to Amol on Thursday, Luca Ceriscioli told IRNA “we should take advantage of the relations to reinforce Iranian and Italian markets”.

Referring to the level of trade and economic relations between Iran and Italy, Head of Mazandaran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture Abdollah Mohajer said it was the first time during the current year that an economic delegation had trip to Mazandaran to implement cooperation.

Marche is located in the Central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the north, Tuscany to the west, Umbria to the southwest, Abruzzo and Lazio to the south and the Adriatic Sea to the east.

In mid-April, Iran and Italy signed 12 contracts to boost their cooperation in trade and economic fields.

Chairman of Iran-Italy Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mines Ahmad Pourfallah said the agreements were signed in the presence of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Iranian Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade, Mohammadreza Nematzadeh.

He said negotiations are also underway between Iranian and Italian trade delegations to discuss further cooperation in economy, trade and banking.

According to the official, the discussions include cooperation in oil, gas, electricity, power plant, steel, textile, fashion, car, infrastructure, urban planning and architecture, telecommunication, railway, airport construction, shipping, refinery, and petrochemicals.

He said the Italian economic delegation, including 70 economic firms, is the ninth delegation which traveled to Iran after the nuclear deal and the lifting of sanctions

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Salehi made the remarks in a meeting with French businessmen taking part in Iran-France Fisheries Seminar, IRNA reported.

He said that foreign and domestic investment in the fisheries industry is in line with the policies outlined in the economy of resistance.

He said that Iran earned more than $300 million from export of aquifers last year.

He predicted that Iran Fisheries Organization will earn $600 million from the export of fisheries by the end of the Sixth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2021).

To achieve the policies of the economy of resistance and to gain eight percent economic growth in the Sixth Economic Development Plan, the country should use knowledge and technology of many countries for aquaculture.

In the first half of 2016 India's Iran oil imports surged by about 58 percent to about 342,000 bpd, the data showed, in comparison with 216,500 bpd in the same period last year.

HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd. (HMEL), partly owned by steel tycoon Lakshmi N. Mittal, took a cargo from Tehran after a three-and-a-half-year break.

Last month HMEL took a million barrels of Iranian oil, according to preliminary tanker arrival data from trade sources and ship-tracking services on the Thomson Reuters terminal.

Indian refiners took in about 381,500 bpd of Iranian oil in June, the data showed.

The June shipments were about 0.6 percent higher from Iranian volumes in May, the data showed. In June last year India shipped in about 274,800 bpd oil from Iran.

India's oil imports from Iran are set to surge to a seven-year high in the year that began April 1, with the nation's state-owned and private refiners together buying at least 400,000 bpd.

In April-June, the first quarter of the current fiscal year, India's Iran oil purchases rose 25.6 percent to 384,500 bpd from about 306,000 bpd in the same year ago period, the data showed.

Private refiner, Essar Oil, was the top Indian client of Iran in June, importing about 180,600 bpd, followed by Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd with about 69,000 bpd, and Reliance Industries Ltd. with about 64,000 bpd.

Petchem exports to UK

For the first time in post-sanctions era, Iran sent a petrochemical consignment to Britain.

European countries accounted for about 13 percent of Iran's trade and export of petrochemical and polymeric products before international sanctions were imposed on Iran, wrote Mehr News Agency on Saturday.

In this regard, between $2 billion and $2.5 billion of Iranian petrochemical products were sent annually to the European countries.

Accordingly, for the first time during post-sanctions era, Iran's petrochemical exports to Britain began to put it the fourth major European country that has joined to the customers of Iranian petrochemical products, after France, Italy and Germany.

A shipment of Iran’s petrochemicals and polymer products have recently been consigned to Britain, while countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Italy and France have been other customers of Iranian products.

Armenia gas import hike

Managing director of National Iranian Gas Exports Company (NIGEC) said an agreement was reached with Armenia over a threefold increase in Iran’s gas exports to the Caucasian country.

Following an earlier power deal between Iran and Armenia over increasing the electricity exchange volume, the two countries reached a new accord for boosting exports of natural gas.

Estimations reveal that electricity and gas exchanges between Iran and Armenia will soar threefold. NIGEC chief Alireza Kameli said Iran is now deploying one million cubic meters of natural gas to Armenia per day asserting that “the figure will hit three million cubic meters overall”.

“The two sides are currently preparing the required infrastructure for boosting natural gas exchange,” stressed the official adding that “the accord will soon be finalized.” Kameli pointed to the country’s gas production capacity stating that “at present, there are no limitations for increasing gas exports to Armenia”.

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The power plants will be built in different places such as East Azarbaijan, Sistan-Baluchestan, Khuzestan, and Saveh, he told Fars News Agency.

Falahatian also added that the plants will be built with a fund of $3 billion.

“The power plants will meet Class F standards, giving efficiency of over 58 percent, which we lack in our country. So the entire investment will be made by foreigners and the price of the power will be less than that produced domestically,” he said.

Iran has signed an investment agreement with a group of foreign companies for developing its energy sector, an Iranian government official said in June.

Government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said then that Iran signed a new contract with a group of foreign companies to attract $4.2 billion worth of direct investments for building power plants in the country.

Nobakht said the contract envisages building several power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 megawatts (MW).

The power plants are projected to be built in the cities of Ahvaz, Dehloran, Zahedan, Saveh, Sufian and Bonab.

Iran's power generation capacity currently stands at around 74,000 MW, of which some 12,000 MW account for hydroelectric power plants, 1,000 MW for a nuclear power plant and the remaining for thermal power plants.

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During the period, imports reached 7.263 million tons worth $9.001 billion, reported ISNA.

According to ICA, the main exported goods were liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and hydrocarbons, iron and steel products, liquefied propane gas and light oil and its derivatives worth $1.69 billion, $434 million, $354 million, $343 million and $291 million respectively.

The top five export destinations for Iranian products during the period were China, the UAE, Iraq, South Korea and India.

Also during the period, Iran's main imports were corn for livestock, soy bean, soy press cake, rice and semi knocked down auto parts which were valued at $272 million, $220 million, $215 million, $197 million and $160 million respectively.

China, the UAE, South Korea, Turkey and Russia were the main exporters to Iran during the period.

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A deal would be Indonesia's first investment in Iran's upstream oil sector. Last month Pertamina inked an agreement to purchase 600,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from state-run marketer National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), reported Reuters.

Pertamina plans to sign a memorandum of understanding with state-owned NIOC to evaluate the two blocks and eventually import crude from the sites for processing in Indonesia if the bid is successful, Pertamina upstream director Syamsu Alam told Reuters.

"We want to manage those blocks. We want to be operator in those blocks," Alam said in a phone call, without identifying the areas.

"Once the blocks are in full production, output could reach hundreds of thousand of barrels per day, but now they haven't met that number yet. They're not mature yet."

Alam was commenting on statement earlier on Monday from an official at Indonesia's Energy Ministry that the Pertamina deal was the next step after an agreement between the governments of the two countries.

"The government to government agreement is done, so now (we're) following up with a company to company (deal)," Oil and Gas Director General Wiratmaja Puja said.

The announcement comes as Iran is about to launch new investment contracts for companies seeking to bankroll upstream projects in its oil and gas sector.

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Launching new contracts

Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Monday that the first phase of the country's oil and gas contracts will be launched this summer and will tender 10 to 15 fields.

Some 135 companies including BP, Total, Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol attended a conference in Tehran in November to hear about the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC).

The IPC would end a buyback system that dates back more than 20 years that bans foreign companies from booking reserves or taking equity stakes in Iranian companies.

Former head of the NIOC Rokneddin Javadi said in May that companies would be invited to bid in July.

Mohammad Pour-Omran made the remarks in a meeting between Kazakhstan and Mazandaran delegations in Sari Chamber of Commerce.

Pour-Omran said added the permission for construction works has been issued by responsible bodies in Amirabad Port.

The refinery is to refine Kazakhstan oil and then export to other countries, according to the official.

He said oil swap is another proposal for bilateral cooperation.

Pour-Omran, who is also the secretary of Mazandaran Export Council, said that north oil terminal in Neka is ready for doing the swap with Central Asian countries, Russia and Kazakhstan.

He told Kazakhstan officials to do oil swap with Iran and said that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to purchase crude oil from Kazakhstan to develop cooperation between Mazandaran Province and Kazakhstan.

Trade stood at around one billion dollars last year from which 900 million dollars were imports from Kazakhstan and 100 million dollars exports to Kazakhstan.

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