Iran: An oil industry that lost its head

Iran’s key oil industry could plunge into crisis, oil experts have warned, if President Mahmud Ahmadinejad does not urgently appoint a replacement for Seyed Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh, who was sacked as oil minister two weeks ago in a major cabinet reshuffle.

Meanwhile, various projects as well as negotiations on oil and gas deals have been kept pending. Oil accounts for 70% of Iran’s export earnings and the country is the world’s fourth-largest exporter.

Hamaneh and Alireza Tahmasbi, minister of industries and mines, were dismissed on August 12. The two ministers were followed on their way out of the cabinet by Mohammad Sheibani, governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI). The CBI governor had several times warned about careless expenditures of oil revenues and expressed his opposition to reductions in interest rates.

At his farewell ceremony on August 18, Hamaneh defended his performance as oil minister during the past two years and warned that certain (political) groups were attempting to destroy the structure of Iran’s oil industry in the same way that others had unsuccessfully tried to liquidate the country’s army soon after the 1978 Islamic Revolution, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported.

Hamaneh had good relations with the Energy Committee, reformist legislator and committee member Valiollah Shojapourian was quoted by Aftab as saying.

“At a time when huge and important contracts in the oil industry are being negotiated and the issue of gasoline rationing has become very sensitive, dismissal of the oil minister, whose plans were supported by the Energy Committee, was wrong and not based on any kind of expertise,” he said.

The deputy chairman of the Energy Committee, Hossein Afarideh, told Aftab that the minister had refused to appoint two people from outside the Oil Ministry whom the president wanted as a ministry deputy and as managing director of one of the ministry’s affiliated companies. The minister had insisted that the individuals lacked the required qualifications for the positions.

He added that there was speculation Hamaneh was also sacked because he refused to sell oil and oil products at reduced prices to countries Ahmadinejad is trying to court as allies.

Asia Times