Iran president names industry outsider for top oil job

Yahoo News:

By Christian Oliver and Hossein Jasseb

Sun Aug 14, 9:27 AM ET

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated an industry outsider, acting Tehran mayor Ali Saeedlou, as oil minister of the world's fourth biggest crude producer on Sunday.

Parliamentarians are expected to vote on all Ahmadinejad's cabinet nominations within a week.

Several lawmakers leaving the parliament chamber suggested it would not be a formality for Saeedlou to take the most prestigious cabinet role in OPEC's second biggest producer, no matter how close he was to the president.

"I believe that stronger people could be nominated as oil minister. Why did that not happen? You should ask the president," said conservative Mohammad Khoshchehreh, who had been widely tipped for the oil ministry himself.

Saeedlou, who has a degree in geology, has a background in the trade ministry and is not known to have experience in the oil industry. He was a deputy commerce minister and headed a free trade zone on the Gulf island of Qeshm.

"I do not know whether he can be more successful than (former Oil Minister Bijan) Zanganeh and I do not know how much similarity there is between the commerce and oil ministries," said conservative MP Iraj Nadimi.

However, Saeedlou has a close working relationship with Ahmadinejad who made oil industry reform a keystone of his presidential election campaign in June.

The conservative new president has vowed to root out the "mafias" he says run Iran's oil industry, to stop the trend of giving preferential treatment to foreign investors, and to distribute Iran's oil wealth more directly to the people.

"He has had to accept compromises on many of the big cabinet appointments apart from the oil ministry -- Saeedlou is his man," said political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad.

When Ahmadinejad was mayor of Tehran from 2003 to June 2005, Saeedlou was his right-hand man, managing the capital's finances.

PARLIAMENT VOTE

Kamal Daneshyar, head of the influential parliamentary energy commission, quashed rumors that he would try to rally opposition against Saeedlou.

"I hope they will get parliament's approval," he said, speaking of the cabinet list in general.

Members of the energy commission such as Daneshyar, Hossein Nejabat and Mohsen Yahyavi had all been tipped as possible ministers in the wings and many oil-watchers speculated their camp could try to thwart Saeedlou.

Economic analyst Saeed Laylaz, who knows Saeedlou, said fears about the candidate's qualifications were unfounded.

"He is very serious, open-minded and moderate. A reasonable man," he said.

Tehran's municipality did not immediately respond to requests for a full biography of Saeedlou.

Some municipality officials, talking on condition of anonymity, say he is from Iran's Turkish minority and served in the Revolutionary Guards, the crucible of much of Iran's political elite, including Ahmadinejad.

These details could not be immediately verified.

Iran has a production capacity of 4.2 million barrels per day, and is generally considered to hold the world's second largest reserves of crude oil and natural gas.