Iran oil minister replaced, caretaker picked

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replaced his oil minister, Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh, on Sunday, a move some analysts saw as a bid to stamp his control on an industry that is the source for most of Iran’s revenues.

Iranian news agencies, which carried letters from the president announcing the step, did not give a reason but said the head of the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Gholamhossein Nozari, would become caretaker minister.


One oil official, yet to officially hear the news, said such an initiative was unlikely to mark a shift in Iran’s policy on OPEC issues but could herald a shake-up by the president in the management of the state sector that Vaziri-Hamaneh had opposed.

“I am thanking you for your work during your ministerial tenure,” ISNA news agency cited a letter to Vaziri-Hamaneh saying.

It said Vaziri-Hamaneh would become a presidential adviser on energy affairs in the world’s fourth biggest oil producer which earned more than $50 billion from its crude exports in the year to March, reaping windfall gains from soaring prices.

The ministry had recently been accused by a former deputy minister of reaching a deal to sell gas to India and Pakistan, via pipeline, too cheaply.

An oil official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that criticism could partly be behind the move to replace the minister in the No. 2 producer in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Reuters