National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is following a program to renovate all the country"s old and worn-out oil facilities, Shana reported quoting a senior official with the company.

"Reconstruction and renovation of oil facilities is one of the main priorities of the company for achieving safe and sustainable production of oil and gas in the country," Farrokh Alikhani, NIOC"s deputy director for production affairs, said in a seminar on introducing investment opportunities in crude oil processing projects in Tehran.

Mentioning development and production as two major pillars of the oil industry, the official said: "regarding development, many projects are underway for increasing and maintaining production capacity of the country"s oil and gas fields, and in the production sector, we are pursuing serious plans for safe and sustainable production."

In order to achieve safe and sustainable production, various programs have been defined which cover all activities starting from the reservoirs followed to digging and maintenance of the wells and up to the processing facilities, pipelines and finally the delivery point, Alikhani explained.

"At the reprocessing stage, two major issues, namely reconstruction, and renovation of worn-out equipment are our top priority," he added.

The country"s southern oil-rich regions are a top priority for NIOC"s renovation and rebuilding programs since over 75 percent of the country"s oil is supplied from this region.

The official also highlighted the important role of desalination and sweetening plants in the safe and sustainable production of oil in the southern regions, saying that four major desalination and processing projects have been considered for investment in this area.