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 He went on to add that now that Phase 12 and Phase 19 of South Pars Gas Field were completed, Petropars had no other projects to execute.

In the course of the ceremony which was held for the introduction of Hamid Akbari at the presence of Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and NICO’s Managing Director, the newly-appointed CEO of Petropars described the challenges of Petropars and commented that such challenges could not be tackled and resolved without substantial assistance from NIOC.

According to him the first challenge was the substantial increase in the costs and expenses incurred for the execution of Phase 12 of South Pars Gas Field, which was not caused by Petropars operations but rather such increase was imposed by the international sanctions. He further commented, “Implementation period of Phase 12 was simultaneous with the time period the international sanctions were imposed. However, the contractors which were involved in this project cooperated with our company to complete this project as Petropars had promised to make payments to them. Under present circumstances we are indebted to them.” 

Petropars newly-appointed CEO stated that a significant step taken by Mohammad-Javad Shams was that he managed to have the increase in the costs of Phase 12 of South Pars approved and confirmed by the Presidential Oil Working Group set up by the previous Administration. Initially, this project was expected to be completed by spending USD 3.4 billion, however, as the scope of work increased and other change orders were introduced, the initial cost increased by USD 6.9 billion. Thanks to the attempts made by Mr. Shams in the course of meeting held with the Presidential Oil Working Group, the final amount was approved which paved the way for successful completion of this mega-project.   

Akbari said if we fail to repay our heavy debts to the contractors of Phase 12 Project, we would be extremely embarrassed. Hence, we expect NIOC and NICO to help us pay our debts and stabilize our financial status.

Another challenge affecting Petropars is that under present circumstances when Phase 12 and Phase 19 of South Pars were completed already, Petropars does not have any project under implementation. Our company has a great number of experienced employees and competent managers and directors who would lose their hope and would become disappointed if no project was ceded to Petropars, which would a great loss of national wealth.

Akbari went on to comment should a new project be assigned to Petropars, it would bring hope to our company.

The Managing Director of Petropars concluded his comments saying that the income tax and profit tax are included among other challenges for which we have no financial resources. Finally, it should be mentioned that transfer of our company to the private sector is another challenge which has imposed despair and hopelessness among our employees and colleagues, and hopefully NIOC and NICO would assist us to resolve and ease these challenges.