TEHRAN (FNA)- Outgoing Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi pledged to help President Rouhani's nominee for the post of oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh to go ahead with his programs for running the oil industry if he wins the parliament's vote of confidence.
Visiting Zanjan citys petrochemical project on Monday, Qassemi told reporters that currently 70 petrochemical projects are underway in the country with different levels of physical progress from 5 to 95 percent whose completion needs allocation of more than 30 billion dollars in credit.
"The hurdles on the way of providing the necessary credit for some of these projects have been tackled while meeting the financial needs of the rest needs more efforts," Qassemi said.
Qassemi went on to say that the new government inherits many big and small-size under-construction projects which are expected to be completed and come online during the new governments term in office.
He added that the development of the oil industry not necessarily means raising crude oil exports but processing it, generating the highest level of value-added and then embarking on export.
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who attended the parliament last Sunday to take his oath of office, has nominated Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, a veteran executive with long experience in energy and oil industry, as his oil minister.
The parliament is scheduled to qualify Namdar Zanganeh for the post on Thursday.