The two companies signed the contracts after very difficult negotiations on Saturday evening. Managing Director of Sadaf Petrochemical Assaluyeh Company Ahmad Jazayeri said the Swiss company will help his company to build a plant for production of the synthetic polymer ESBR, a strategic product used in the petrochemical industry and rubber manufacturing.

The pipeline project has been stuck for years now because of sanctions on Iran. Pakistan has not been able to build the pipeline on its soil due to lack of funding. Iran has already built 900 km length of the pipeline on its territory while Pakistan still has to start work on the pipeline that would traverse its territory.

In 2015 global demand for primary energy grew by only 1%, significantly slower than the 10-year average. This reflected continued weakness in the global economy and lower growth in Chinese energy consumption as the country shifts from an industrial to a service-driven economy.

Iran is ramping up its energy industry after international sanctions restricting its access to financing and global oil markets were lifted in January. Since then, the country has boosted oil output to near pre-sanctions levels and raised natural gas production at the South Pars gas field on the Gulf coast.

Indonesia's oil and gas company PT Pertamina seeks the possibility to develop oil and gas fields in Iran and import liquefied natural gas (LPG) from the Middle East country.

"Currently, Iran's crude oil exports, excluding gas condensates, have reached 2 million barrels per day (bpd)," Javadi said. "Iran's crude oil export capacity will reach 2.2 million barrels by the middle of summer."

Established in 1998, Petropars was founded to contribute toward the development of Iran’s vast energy resources. It specializes as a developer of exploration, exploitation and production in upstream projects.

Socar President Rovnag Abdullaev disclosed last week that Azerbaijan was in the process of negotiating an agreement under which it would purchase 3-5bn m³/yr of gas from Gazprom.

Iran plans to double its Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) production in the post-sanctions era, Deputy Director of International Affairs for Marketing and Crude Oil Operation in the National Iranian Oil Company Safar-Ali Karamati said.

Russia has been developing new pipeline projects such as South Stream, Turk Stream and Nord Stream 2. If one of them were to be realized then transit risk stemming from Ukraine would be severely minimized and Moscow would have important strategic leverage.

Kazakhstan's KazMunaiGaz, which owns the largest stake in the project, has said previously that the field would relaunch by the end of 2016.

Oil-producing countries can come to an agreement capping crude production at January levels even if Iran doesn’t join the move to help shore up prices.

Last month, the state-owned Southern Gas Corridor Company (SGCC) raised $1bn in a 10-year eurobond at 6.875% yield. However, it met only half of its original plan.

OPEC secondary sources put Iran's current output at 2.93 million barrels per day (bpd). It is working to regain market share, particularly in Europe, after the lifting of international sanctions in January. The sanctions had cut crude exports from a peak of 2.5 million bpd before 2011 to just over 1 million bpd in recent years.

According to documents prepared by the oil ministry and obtained by NGE in mid-March, South Pars produces a little less than half of Iran's total raw gas, meaning Iran's total raw gas production was above 260bn m3 in the last fiscal year.