IRAN - Profile - Hamdollah Mohammed Nejad.

A deputy oil minister, Mohammed Nejad is the managing director of National Iranian Gas Co. (NIGC), a NIOC subsidiary. He took up this position in 1996, replacing Assadollah Salehi-Forooz. He is responsible for gas export projects including the proposed IGAT-3 pipeline to Turkey, for the domestic gas market, and for gas reinjection which is crucial to the life of many oilfields. In January 1997, Mohammed Nejad announced a plan to build two underground facilities to store 1 BCM of gas at a cost of $700m. One storage site has been located 50 km south-east of Tehran and another at Qom, 120 km south of Tehran. In late 1998, he said the 20 regional gas distribution units - like Isfahan Gas, Fars Gas, Mashhad Gas, etc. - were to be under NIGC's "partial control" for two to three years and later should become fully independent. NIGC's gas processing plants are also to become independent.

Ali Hashemi is a deputy oil minister and acting managing director at NIOC for production. He was given this post in September 1997 by Minister Zanganeh. Fereidun Saghafian is a deputy oil minister who in September 1997 was made the head of a high-level NIOC committee which later allocated the onshore fields that were to be offered to foreign companies for further development. Mohammed Aghai is a deputy oil minister in charge of the domestic oil market and the procurement of oil products from abroad. Previously he used to head NIOC's onshore operations directorate.