Cooperation with Foreign Research Institutes
More than a century has passed since the first petroleum seep in Iran’s Masjid Soleiman, the first in the Middle East, and ensuing oil production. Initially people used crude oil for lighting purposes. But today one can see the impact of crude oil and petroleum products in almost every industry. Over this time, researchers have conducted studies on the applications of crude oil.
Research has brought about widespread technological progress in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors.
Technology is the instrumental factor in oil production in coming decades. The emergence of technology and its application will determine oil output levels in the future. As a powerful lever in power balance, the petroleum industry enjoys a special standing at the regional and global levels. Therefore, upgrading this fundamental industry is a national requirement in Iran.
Within the general framework of oil development plan, when we take a deeper look at the contents and strategies of Vision 2025 national development plan, as well as the 5th Five-Year Economic Development Plan, it is concluded that development of this industry depends chiefly on upgrading technology and using modern industrial tools and, on a larger scale, political and strategic issues.
A major research center involved in the petroleum industry in Iran is the Institute for International Energy Studies (IIES). Within the structure of the Petroleum Ministry and National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), IIEs is serving as an intermediary scientific body linking science and industry at strategic levels. IIES monitors for instance market developments, as well as the latest technological achievements and the situation of financial and capital markets.
Ali Mobini Dehkordi, director of IIES, says due to significant changes at the global level the issue of energy has engaged economic, technical and technological, environmental, security, import and export elements.
Noting that the world would be gradually running short of hydrocarbon resources, he said: “A host of issues like integrity of big multinational companies controlling the energy, oil and gas structure in the world, formation of regional bonds and rivalries among regional oil producers for the purpose of oil market gains have given rise to specifically complicated and dynamic conditions.”
“Therefore,” he said, “the issue of energy could not be looked at from a single aspect under the current circumstances.”
He underlined the need for linkage between different aspects of the energy sector, saying: “In the energy sector, pollution, international treaties and membership of nations, the economic growth of different countries and their independence on energy, imports and exports with a view to energy security, level of application of knowledge in the energy sector and its cost price have entirely given rise to dynamism and complexity.”
Energy Efficiency Scheme
Dehkordi said implementation of an energy efficiency plan, drawn up by a German company, would help Iran save $17 billion on energy by 2025.
Highlighting Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh’s call for cooperation with some international institutes, he said: “To that effect, an agreement has been signed between IIES and German Energy Agency (Dena) for drawing up an energy efficiency executive plan in Iran over a period of five to ten years.”
“This agreement is nearing finalization and new opportunities will be created in energy saving,” said Dehkordi.
“If within the framework of this agreement, we bring the output of power plants in the country to the average output of power plants in Europe, we will be saving more than $17 billion by 2025,” he added.
“In the packages of cooperation with the Europeans, we are ready for investment and they can provide their necessary energy via our networks,” he said. “Furthermore, in light of cooperation with the leading consumers of oil we can increase production capacity of our oil and gas fields by new marketing.”
Dehkordi said energy efficiency was the first element under study by international agencies and consultants in the five continents in order to achieve maximum efficiency from their resources.
He said that diversification was the second element considered by the agencies and consultants with the focus being on energy resources, diversity in production and consumption, transfer and concentration or non-concentration on an energy mix.
Dehkordi also touched on carbon management as another issue under study by energy planners. “It means that every sector which would produce less carbon will be prioritized and on the same basis they will turn to conversion technology, investment and processing.”
“Big nations like China and Southeast Asian nations are making efforts to introduce integrity in their market through investment in all sectors of upstream oil, transmission and distribution,” said Dehkordi.
He said carbon management and non-concentration would create new conditions for market studies and cooperation among nations.
“Currently, the competition between machine energy and human energy is under management,” he added.
Dehkordi also referred to the issue of big data and data mining of reservoir management, saying: “In the past, oil and gas reservoirs were managed traditionally by drilling and measurement. But currently, they are estimated based on online and digital data, behavior of reservoirs and oil and gas wells, and the diversity in data mining and operation of oil and gas fields has created unique opportunities.”
Cooperation with Non-Colonial Institutes
Dehkordi went on to say that a connection bridge between science and industry was the solution to cost reduction and research quality improvement.
“Materialization of this issue requires an innovative perception, new structure and communications that are being developed at IIES. For instance, we are currently cooperating with the German Energy Agency (Dena) on energy efficiency. It means that we intend to cooperate with scientific and research institutes which are not colonialist,” he added.
Dehkordi also named some of projects IIES has currently under way as follows:
Geopolitical developments study; hydrocarbon balance; national energy outlook; NIOC strategic plans; financial relations between NIOC and government; future gas market studies; studying gas pricing models in domestic and foreign markets; studying petrochemical industry hard currency generation; studying Iran’s financial transactions with Russia, India and China; studying energy producers and consumers and Iran’s neighbors; studying human resources structure in Iran’s petroleum industry; petroleum industry technology roadmap.
Gov’t View toward Research
Dehkordi said Iran’s 12th administration has been looking at the issue of research and science differently.
“However, there is a long way ahead because this new view has failed to stabilize itself,” he added.
Dehkordi said science and technology committees and knowledge-based companies have been established in the country, which are required to catch up with the pace of scientific progress.
“For instance, McKinsey Global Institute is an international research firm offering revolutionary research proposals to the five continents, but the company has not seen any revolution per se over the past 150 years,” he said.