Tehran expects oil earnings of nine billion dollars
for 1998-9
TEHRAN, Feb 14 (AFP) - Iran now expects to earn just nine billion dollars
from oil exports for 1998-1999, a massive fivebillion dollar shortfall
on the 14 billion dollars originallyprojected, officials announced on Sunday.
The collapse in the world oil price over the past six months meant that
Iran was now earning 25 percent less from oil exportsthan it was at the
time of the Islamic Revolution 20 years ago, thedirector of the state Planning
and Budget Organization, Mohammad-AliNajafi, told the official news agency
IRNA.
Iran relies on oil sales for nearly 85 percent of its foreign currency
receipts and around half of all government income, and thecollapsing oil
price has created an estimated budget shortfall of6.2 billion dollars for
the fiscal year to March.
The budget adopted by Iran's conservative dominated parliament projects
a deficit of at least five billion dollars again next yearon oil earnings
of 12.084 billion dollars.
But the budget MPs approved was based on a projected oil price substantially
higher than that Iran is currently obtaining.
The budget predicted an oil price of 11.8 dollars a barrel for next
year requiring a significant recovery from the roughly ninedollars a barrel
Iranian oil is currently obtaining.
The second largest producer in the OPEC oil cartel, Iran's current output
stands at 3.6 million barrels per day, of which 2.5million bpd is exported.
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