In this period, the export of petrochemicals and gas condensates registered a 38.8 percent hike as compared to the same period of last year.

Another statistic indicated that Iran’s export of handwoven carpets and handicrafts registered a 4.7 percent growth from March 21 to July 23.

Over 35.7 million tons of products, valued at $17.3 billion, were exported from the country, showing a 6.4 percent decline and also a 22 percent hike in weight and value respectively.

Accordingly, the imports of non-oil goods into the country showed a 12.2 percent decline and a 16.8 percent hike in weight and value respectively, the report added.

Based on the report of the ministry country’s foreign trade value in the first four months of the current year hit about $28.9 billion, the rate of which stood at about $36.5 billion in the last year’s corresponding period.

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Majid Karimi, director-general of financial and commercial markets study office at the ministry, told IRNA on Saturday that Iran’s non-oil trade with 11 member states of the SCO reach 9.85 billion dollars in spring.

He said that Iran’s non-oil exports to those countries amounted to 5.5 billion dollars with 20 percent increase compared to the same period last year and its imports accounted to 4.35 billion dollars up by 41 percent.

China, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, and Uzbekistan topped Iran’s list of exports destinations among the SCO members this spring, according to Karimi.

He highlighted the presence of China and Russia in the SCO as the two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and India as an emerging economy adds to the significance of Iran’s accession to the regional organization.

Karimi said that the SCO can remove the dollar and euro from transactions between member states and plan for a single currency in the future, noting that Iran has offered using insurances and financial channels.

The SCO can also adopt proper approaches on sustainable collaborations on energy, as two world’s biggest energy producers (Russia and Iran) and two world’s biggest energy consumers (China and India) are members of the organization.

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The Soroush gas field in located on Kharg Island, Bushehr province.

The operation was undertaken with cooperation of National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and coordination of Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) by dispatching “Forest” tanker to Soroush field to inject gas condensates to its wells.

The operation was successfully accomplished for the first time in the history of Iran oil industry.

It was aimed at paving the way for continuation of gas production in the joint field and increasing the industry’s flexibility in critical conditions.

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Fereidoun Hemmati who recently had visited the implementing process of oil and refinery projects in the coasts of Mokran told local media on Friday that mega projects in the oil transmission line, the oil export terminal, and the port and offshore oil export are underway in Jask County.

“Mokran coastline can play a special role in the future of marine exchanges,” Hemmati added.

He went on to say that each of these mega projects that are underway by Iranian specialists and engineers, and by the completion of oil transmission line, crude oil will be transferred from Goreh to Jask via a transmission line.

Construction of Goreh-Jask pipeline project and Jask export terminal officially commenced on Jun 25, 2020.

Governor-General of Hormozgan province added that an oil export terminal project is also being done in the Mokran coasts with a capacity of 10 million barrels.

Mokran coastal region is located in Balouchestan province in southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan, it is a 600-mi (1,000-km) stretch along the Gulf of Oman from Ra’s (cape) al-Kūh, Iran (west of Jask), to Lasbela District, Pakistan (near Karachi).

Mokran is a semi-desert coastal strip in the South of Sistan and Baluchestan, in Pakistan and Iran, along the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

According to official statistics, about 40,000 jobs have been created directly and two to 3,000 indirectly.

Iran’s Mokran coastal area are the perfect places for the development of the petrochemical industry and, given the wide availability of gas resources, are highly valuable for this region’s development.

The strategic position of Mokran coasts, along the Sea of Oman, the new port will be established to increase Iran’s marine traffic in international waters and the oceans.

The post Mokran Coasts: Iran’s new energy hub appeared first on IRAN This Way.

The platform stopped gas excavation a year ago due to damages to parts of its pipelines stretching 110 kilometers on the seabed.

Alireza Ebadi said that the damaged pipelines have been repaired and the platform came back to production on Friday with a capacity of 500 million cubic feet.

In an exclusive interview with IRNA on Oct 20, Managing-Director of the South Pars Field Hadi Hashemzadeh Farhang said that once Iran completes the new phase of South Pars Field, it will outpace Qatar in gas excavation from the shared field by 120 mcm/d.

The official said that Iran finally won the “breathtaking marathon” over gas excavation in the shared field with Qatar.

Now 23 years after the South Pars development project inaugurated, the field, having 12 refineries, has turned into the biggest gas refinery complex of the world.

With the inauguration of phases 2 and 3 in 2001, the field used to produce some 56 mcm/d of gas which has now risen to 700 mcm/d, he added.

He said that what doubles Iran’s achievement in outpacing Qatar in the excavation of gas from the shared field is that only one-third of the area of the field is located within the Iranian territory while the rest two-thirds are in the Qatari waters.

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Production and distribution of face masks and other protective gears
Disinfection of public places and cars
Distribution of essential food supplies and cash handouts
Volunteering at hospitals and other medical facilities

Tehran’s Autism Charity distribute over 80,000 packs

Since the early days of the corona covid19 pandemic, the Shokoufeha Charity for children with autism, In one of the Tehran’s eastern neighborhoods halted most of its activities and instead had these volunteers prepare and distribute for free sanitary packages.

Behrouz Khosravan CEO of Shokoufeh Charity for Autistic Children said: “The Charity was founded in 2017. It has taken 70 kids under its wings, providing them with food parcels and medicine. 30 kids receive monthly pensions while we provide rehabilitation services to 45 kids at the charity’s central branch.”

Director of Shokoufeh Charity added: “The activities of the rehabilitation center were halted soon after the start of the outbreak. Therefore, our psychotherapists and occupational therapists provided families of the autistic kids with educational content online. We also prepared sanitary packages and distributed them among the families. We have managed to distribute over 80 thousand packs among supported families and across the city.”
Haniyeh Abbasi is social worker in Shokoufeh Charity for Autistic Children said: “In early February 2020, after the outbreak, the charity decided to prepare and distribute sanitary packages that include a face mask, gloves and a hand sanitizer gel among the needy to help lighten the load for hospital staff and officials alike. We hope the recipients of these packages can use them in good health. We also gave these packages to the families of autistic children under the charity’s protection since most of them are financially challenged. So we decided we could prepare these packages with the help of donors to lighten the load for them.”

Hanieh mention that: “After outbreak we started to reduce the number of the classes and instead offered online sessions. We also pay their families some cash handouts every month to help them with their medical and other daily expenses.”

Retired teacher who is member of Charity member also said: “Whoever has to deal with autistic children inevitably becomes kind and compassionate. Therefore, all these people here have been doing voluntary work without ever once complaining.”

The volunteer who took the corona

Firouzgar Hospital has been one of the main coronavirus treatment centers in Tehran, and also where Meysam Ameri was working voluntarily until he contracted the disease.
Meysam Ameri is a 35-year old graphic designer working out of his home studio in north of Tehran. Since the early days of the outbreak, He began his voluntary work by handing out free face masks and gloves in Tehran subway, and disinfecting the Grand Bazaar.
In early April 2020, he volunteered to help the fight against coronavirus at Firouzgar hospital where he finally contracted the disease 20 days later.

Meysam recounted his story of joining Firouzgar Hospital:
It was 25 of us, men and women, who joined the hospital as the first volunteer group. We had an agreement to take care of all the things left unfinished after receiving initial training. For a while, we only did office work and disinfected the exteriors until we gained the trust of the hospital staff, and were then allowed in the Coronavirus ward after receiving appropriate training.
Aside from carrying out duties like taking test samples to the lab, and taking the results back, and going with patients to get CT Scans, we – as caregivers- also helped the patients getting to, using the toilet or changing their diapers.
We would form emotional bonds with patients to make their hospital experience and their battle with the disease more bearable. We would also help patients video call their family members. Other creative things we would do include giving them haircuts and even massage! We would also make fresh fruit juice. It was a favorite with patients and the medical staff alike!
We were later received training for some more technical nursing tasks like taking blood pressure and body temperature, and reading a pulse oximeter that monitors oxygen levels in the patients’ blood.
About 80 other caregivers joined us in the meantime. Still anyone who desired could leave. So on my last day at the hospital, there were about 20 of us volunteers there.
One other interesting thing we did was to throw a surprise birthday party for one of the nurses whose wedding had been cancelled due to the pandemic. We also held a ceremony to celebrate the birthday of Imam Mahdi on Mid-Sha’ban. Just like our other expenses like the cost of gowns and face masks, the cost of holding the event was paid through donations.

Meysam told us the hospital work was heavy and stressful. He would start working after performing his prayers at dawn, and would not go to bed until well after midnight. He believes his extreme physical fatigue contributed to his disease: One night, after twenty something days at the hospital, I realized I had a temperature and I was breathing heavily. At first, I thought it was just fatigue from working long hours. I went to the emergency department and underwent a CT scan just to realize my lungs were affected. I stayed there for three days until I could breathe easier. Then I spent 20 more days at home self-quarantining.
Coughing was not one of the symptoms. Instead, the symptoms were a high fever, and severe muscle and chest pains. Three weeks after the quarantine, my breaths are still short and heavy.
But none of these pains hurt Meysam as much as the pain of not seeing his family, he mentioned: I could not see any of my family members for 45 days, from the night I was admitted to hospital to the last day of my quarantine. I have a 9-month old son and a 5-year old daughter. My son had started crawling and grown his first teeth when I got to meet him again. Separation from my wife, kids and parents was my toughest experience.

Tehran municipality and volunteer work in Corona pandemic

Tehran Municipality, with extensive coordination, provided the possibility of volunteer groups. Groups that produced and distributed masks and hygiene items, groups that disinfected places, and groups that distributed food packages to the needy were able to provide their services with the help of the Tehran Municipality.

Pirouz Hanachi Tehran Mayor during the visiting thousands of food packages prepared for the needy said: All donors, volunteers, Tehran municipality and Basij forces are working to create a database so that the process of distributing food and health packages could be done fairly.

Faezeh Dolati is cultural deputy of Tehran 7 district municipality mentioned:
The municipality of borough seven, as one of the twenty-two boroughs of Tehran, provides various services to the citizens such as:
⁃ holding entertainment activities like street carnivals in the neighborhoods. In this way, people by respecting social distance, can watch and enjoy from their homes.
⁃ Managing and coordinating voluntary services, for example We produced around 2 million face masks with participation of local volunteers.
⁃ Preparing and Distributing nonperishable food packages for impacted families in collaboration with local businesses In order to participating in social responsibility.
⁃ Transforming neighborhoods centers into covid-19 service centers for monitoring and screening to help health care system
⁃ and finally, identifying vulnerable people and those who lost their jobs due to Corona virus crisis while distributing health packages

Mehdi Shirzad headquarters office of organizing social participation in Tehran mucipality about about Tehran’ voluntary work during the lockdown said: Fairly speaking, they did absolutely great with the fight against the coronavirus outbreak, and with collecting donations. So did mosque Imams and all who do social work there. Youth volunteer groups also helped a lot in the neighborhoods. This proved that urban crisis management is almost impossible without citizens’ help. The municipality’s most important achievement was the creation of a platform to connect NGOs to volunteers. So citizens can upload their resumes on this platform and then join events organized by NGOs, or even hold their own charity events.

Tehran Volunteer group preparing 3500 hot meals every day

Mostafa Foroutan who is Heydaraneh Campaign Manager said:
A number of Volunteer groups joined forces and created the Heydaraneh movement to be able to produce more comprehensive work during the coronavirus outbreak. In the beginning, like many other groups, and since we didn’t know how to exactly combat the virus, we began our activities by disinfecting public places, and later produced and distributed face masks.
In the next phase, and on the recommendation of hospitals, we started making a gravy-like puree from quail meat extract and medicinal herbs.
The movement also managed to prepare and distribute about 4000 essential food parcels for needy families.
We also collected donations for those directly impacted by the outbreak.

Hossein Bolandimonfared director of volunteer group that preparing food said: During the coronavirus outbreak, with the help of other volunteer groups, we have been preparing 3500 high quality hot meals every day.
Making fresh fruit juice for hospitals is another thing our group has done. A supervisor from the health ministry would oversee the whole process 24/7 to make sure the product meets health standards.
I should stress that we received an unprecedented amount of volunteer help for the supply, preparation and distribution of the meals. The level of participation was much higher than during the 2019 floods and Kermanshah’s 2017 earthquake.
Iranians have proven to be people of hard times. While people in other parts of the world were forming long queues outside supermarkets, and even seen fighting, Iranians were standing in line for voluntary work. This is really valuable that people care about one another in this situation.

The 6 months after the coronavirus pandemic, about 360 thousand Iranians have contracted coronavirus, and seven thousands -unfortunately- lost their lives. The first wave of the covid-19 is now behind us.
We, the people of Tehran, have brought this malicious outbreak under control for now, well of course, with the help of the government and municipality. The exact numbers are still to be fully worked out, but estimates show over half a million Tehraners have offered some kind of voluntary service during the first wave of the outbreak.

The post Exclusive video| Tehran: Voluntary work in Corona pandemic appeared first on IRAN This Way.

“Considering the growth of [non-oil] exports in late 1398 [previous Iranian calendar year ended on March 19] which continued in the current year, the exports are expected to grow significantly in the second half of the year, and hopefully we will achieve the foreseen target,” Lahouti told ILNA.

“Of course, we missed the first quarter of this year due to the coronavirus outbreak and the closure of borders; however, since over 80 percent of the border crossings have been reopened, the exports growth will be much higher in [the Iranian calendar month of] Khordad (May 21-June 20),” he added.

He further noted that it could also be possible for the exports to increase in the second half of the year to even exceed the $42 billion target.

Mentioning the preferential trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the official said Eurasia will be a great export opportunity this year and we have also the largest markets in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“China and India are also among our target markets; we are trying to increase our exports to China and hopefully our exports to India will return to normal levels as well.”

According to Lahouti, the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade is targeting 15 neighboring countries for non-oil exports in the current year, and the diversity of the target markets has not changed much.

Iran to launch joint chamber office in Syria

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Export Confederation head said Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) has purchased a building in Syria and the office of Iran-Syria joint chamber of commerce in the Arab country will be opened soon.

“Naturally, by launching the Iranian Chamber of Commerce office in Syria, we can expand exports and investment in this country,” he said.

“When the Syrian market opens and conditions return to normal, we will have various plans for this country as well.”

The official noted that Syria is looking for joint investment, and Iran’s goal is to increase non-oil export to the country.

“Syria is also a good market for joint ventures, but infrastructure must be provided and protocols must be followed,” Lahouti emphasized.

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With the commissioning of Diesel Treatment Unit and installing new equipment before the termination of the current year [to end March 20, 2021], 22 million liters of diesel will be produced in the refinery according to Euro-5 standard, he said.

Of total 22 million liters of diesel currently produced in the refinery, 2 million liters is produced according to the Euro standard.

Presently, 12 million liters of gasoline is daily produced in the refinery, observing Euro-5 standard rules and regulations, Ebrahimi stressed.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Ebrahimi pointed to the commitments of his company in tandem with the social responsibilities and added, “Esfahan Oil Refining Company has assisted Municipality of Isfahan and Isfahan University of Medical Sciences financially in the fight against coronavirus.”

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As ILNA reported, six of the mentioned wells are going to be drilled in the onshore exploration sites while the other two will be offshore.

“The drilling operations for yet another five exploratory wells which were started in the previous calendar year (ended on March 19) will also continue in the current year,” Hendi said.

Explaining about the two offshore wells, the official noted that one of these wells is located in Siri region, which is being drilled independently by the Exploration Department, and the other in the Yalda field for which the drilling operations started this week in collaboration with Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC).

According to the official, the Exploration Department has identified and prioritized all of the country’s sedimentary basins, and each of these basins is carefully studied and modeled with new methods.

Last year, a total of 18,000 meters of exploratory wells were dug through 60 rigs, meaning that an average of five drilling rigs were active each month, he noted.

Earlier in March, Mohammadreza Hor, the deputy director for technical affairs at NIOC’s Exploration Directorate, announced that the mentioned directorate had seven active drilling rigs in the said month and according to the development plans the number of the rigs was planned to increase to eight in the coming months.

He had also announced the completion of drilling operations of three wells in Forouzan, Mansouri and Deng fields after conducting preliminary tests in February, saying: “Currently, operation trials are underway for Arman exploration well in the region.”

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Mohammad Rastad said, “Last year, despite the difficult economic conditions, 11 private investment projects valued at 59 trillion rials began in the country’s ports under BOT (build-operate-transfer) contracts”, IRNA reported on Wednesday.

According to the official, following the PMO plans for the development of the country’s ports, last year 12 development projects worth 9 trillion rials (about $214 million) were completed in collaboration with the private sector.

He further noted that his organization has also allocated 21 trillion rials (about $500 million) of its internal resources to such development projects in the current year (started on March 20).

Elsewhere in his remarks, Rastad noted that port machinery worth over €20 million, which were supposed to be imported into the country in the previous year, were built by domestic companies and installed in Shahid Rajaee Port (Iran’s largest container port in the southern province of Hormozgan).

According to the deputy transport minister, 52.5 million tons of non-oil commodities were exported from Iranian ports in the previous year.

The official further noted that this year, three phases of Shahid Rajaee port will be put into operation and 900 meters of wharves will also be inaugurated to increase the port’s container capacity.

In late March, Rastad announced that PMO is going to pay 36 trillion rials (about $857 million) for supplying marine fleet during the current Iranian calendar year.

The official said this fund will be paid to the marine industries of the country for supplying the required fleet this year, which is named the year of “Surge in Production”.

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