2009's winners and losers in the oil industry

The Iraqi oil auctions. (Getty Images)
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And the two biggest losers…
Iran

If things weren’t bad enough for Iran’s hydrocarbons industry after UN sanctions over the country’s nuclear ambitions meant that many foreign IOCs, including French supermajor Total, had to pull out of production contracts, then the recent presidential elections have resulted in even more uncertainty.

Iran is believed to be suffering declining oil production rates of between 4%-8% and much of the country’s vast reserves require expensive gas injection techniques that it has not got full access to due to the international sanctions.

Various projects, including the development of South Pars, the world’s largest gas field, are years behind schedule and a brain drain has meant that the industry is missing many talented and highly trained Iranian industry professionals.

Even the recent announcement that US$70 billion was going to be spent on the North and South Pars gas fields was met with scepticism by industry experts after no indication was given as to where the money would come from.

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FEATURED COMMENT I'm not sure the NOCs are out of the woods yet! Nice feature though   1 Comments Read more comments »

While the political situation remains it seems that despite having the third largest oil reserves and second largest gas reserves Iran’s energy sector has a long hard road ahead before it can achieve its potential.

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