Iran Press/ Commentary: Once Iran was considered as the major oil producer in Western Asia and the fourth in the world after the US, Venezuela, and the Soviet Union, the UK possessed the privilege to exploit Iran's oil with the US and Russia competing over the Iranian black gold.
When the then government of Mossadegh put the nationalizing of Iran's oil on its agenda in April 1951, acts of sabotage and conspiracies against the country were enhanced. The American-British coup in August 1953 against Mossadegh's government was part of the plot.
It was after the very coup that BP, Shell, Californian, and Texas oil companies rushed into Iran to loot the country's oil despite the fact that the oil industry had been nationalized.
But after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, all of the former contracts were canceled and in practice, the privileges of exploration, extraction, refining, and export of oil were re-conferred to the National Iranian Oil Company.
During the last decade, the resistive economy was stressed by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, and therefore avoiding the crude sale of the oil was on top priority, such that today the refineries' production has reached from 22% to 45%.
Localization of the oil industry equipment has always been a concern of Iran. 43 years after the Islamic Revolution of Iran, the industry has reached 85% self-sufficiency in manufacturing equipment required in the oil, gas, and petrochemical areas.
Of course, the losers of the field, the expelled colonizers, did not withdraw, imposing and re-imposing sanctions on Iran to cut off its oil export and import of the required technical equipment. Yet, the boycott in fact was an opportunity for the Iranian experts, because it made them try more and more and get self-sufficiency to a great extent.
Consequently, a huge volume of maintenance, modernization, and development activities in the fields of production, refining, and transmission was carried out, which made the oil industry capable of neutralizing sanctions.
Discovery of 65 oil and gas fields, increase of extractable oil and condensate reserves up to 160 billion barrels, an increase of oil production and extractable gas to 33 trillion cubic meters, an eightfold increase in gas production, and discovery of new gas field such as South Pars, and self-sufficiency in gasoline production are among the petro-achievements of Iran after the victory of the Islamic Revolution.
By 2026, Iran will have been the hub of energy exchanges (oil and gas) in the world, with effective and constructive international interaction with other countries, especially major players in the field of energy.
Written by: Hassan Aghighi Salmasi
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