National Iranian Oil Company
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) (Persian: شرکت ملّی نفت ایران, Sherkat Melli Naft'e Iran), a government-owned corporation under the direction of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran, is an oil and natural gas producer and distributor headquartered in Tehran. It was established in 1948. NIOC ranks as the world's third largest oil company, after Saudi Arabia's state-owned Aramco. and Gasprom.
The NIOC is exclusively responsible for the exploration, extraction, transportation and exportation of crude oil, as well as sales of natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Having provided the domestic refineries and manufacturing plants with crude oil required for the petroleum products, the NIOC exports its surplus production according to commercial considerations in the framework of the quotas determined by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and at the prices prevalent in the international markets. The NIOC also signs some long term contracts on "buy-back" basis with foreign companies in order to exploit national oil fields and export its products. The NIOC exports natural gas and liquefied natural gas via the "National Iranian Gas Export Company".
NIOC's oil and gas reserves in early 2005 was as follows;
- Recoverable liquid hydrocarbon reserves in early 2005, 136.99 billion barrels (21.780 km3) 10% of world's total.
- Recoverable gas reserves in early 2005, 28.17×1012 m3 (15% of world's total).
Current NIOC production capacities include over 4 million barrels (640×103 m3) of crude oil and in excess of 500 million cubic meters of natural gas per day. In 2008, the average extraction cost of oil was less than $5 per barrel. This does not include processing (refining) and distribution costs.
Iran’s cumulative oil production has reached to 61 billion barrels (9.7×109 m3) by the end of 2007, most of these volume produced after 1951, under the supervision of NIOC.
Iran's overall export crude oil was valued at US$85 billion in 2010.
Read more about National Iranian Oil Company: NIOC's Oil Reserves, NIOC's Gas Reserves, Recent Discoveries, Organizational Structure, Subsidiary Companies, Production Costs and Investments, NIOC's Major Domestic Contractors, Participations in Foreign Gas Fields
Famous quotes containing the words national, oil and/or company:
“Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men’s language. Of course women learn it. We’re not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man’s world, so it talks a man’s language.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)