Iran’s Long Term Energy Problems

While Iran has the world’s second largest reserves of Natural gas and also one of the world’s largest reserves of oil the long term energy situation here is far from bright. This is the life line of its economy yet the Iranian government is investing surprisingly rather small sums in maintaining the infrastructure and or increasing current production. Daily production is coming at 3.9 million barrels which is actually 5% under its OPEC quota; they have not been able to meet their quota for over 21 months now. Shortage of technical skills and huge delays in new projects are the main culprits for falling production. In fact if nothing is done soon within a decade Iran’s net oil exports could fall to zero. Oil minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh has stated that without additional new investment daily out put could fall by as much as 13% a year more then double what outside experts had expected.

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