khalijefars News, Blogs, Art and Community
Jamshid Chalangi:
In tonight’s program of Behind the Headlines we will discuss the state of Iran’s oil industries with our special guest, the oil markets expert Sohrab Sobhani, who will tell us if Iran can play a role in future of Asian markets as a growing oil and gas supplier to the world.
Sohrab Sobhani:
You just showed a video clip of a young mullah complaining about the dire state of Iran’s economy and how people are suffering from it.
As for your question that if this economic crisis should be blamed on the US, the answer is a definite no. The party responsible for this crisis is those who made that revolution, ranging from Khomeini to his followers up to today, including Khamenei.
Before the arrival of Khomeini Iran’s economy, in comparison with that of Turkey, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, was a leading and growing economy with a value of more than $80 billion.
Today all these three countries have surpassed Iran’s economy and our people earn less than what they did 40 years ago.
It was quite natural that with the increase of oil revenue for Iran in the early 1970s and the rise in inflation forced many people from rural populations to came to live in the major cities, but this should not have caused a revolution.
The late Shah wanted to import Iran’s gas to Europe but with the arrival of Khomeini this project was stopped. Now the republic of Azerbaijan imports its gas to Turkey via Georgia, which will then is transported to Europe. If thecurrent regime had any sense of looking after the national interest of Iran it would have saved the Shah’s project.
Major oil and gas companies of the world are active players in the New York and London Stock Exchange and would only invest in stable countries but this is not the case with Iran of today and these investments are made in Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain and Qatar.
So long as in the streets and political circles of Iran we hear “death to America and death to Israel”, no major oil and gas company of the world will enter the country’s oil and gas industries.
Iran needs at least $25 billion of investment to make its oil wells operate efficiently.
One of the reasons for OPEC’s former powerful position was because Iran and Saudi Arabia had developed a growing and stable economy but today the revolution in technology of oil exploration has changed the market and it is quite possible that in the future countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela might act as independent suppliers of oil.
