Outlook grim for ousted oil head

Press, 1 October 1979, Page 9

Outlook grim for ousted oil head

KZPA-Reuter Teheran Iranian oil workers have ittacked the management of the nation’s oil industry and iemanded the elimination of tounter-revolutionaries and traitors as soon as possible, the state radio has reported. The radio yesterday said workers at Aghajari, one of Iran’s biggest oil-fields, had iemonstrated for the two jays against the head of the National Iranian Oil Company and other members of ■he N.1.0.C. board. The oil chief, Mr Hassan Nazih, aged 57, was ousted an Friday and ordered to f tresent himself to the Revoutionary Prosecutor-General, but his whereabouts were inknown yesterday. Oil-industry sources said the Prime Minister (Dr

if Mehdi Bazargan) had asked the remaining members of ? the N.1.0.C. board to keep f working. The normal procei dure would have been for t the nine board members, ap--1; pointed by Mr Nazih in • April, to submit their resignations. I Dr Bazargan put N.1.0.C., tithe nerve centre of the trail nian economy and almost a aj State within a State, under si the control of a newiy- - created Oil Minister, Mr Alit Akbar Moinfar, a 50-year-old earthquake expert. T The unofficial Head of I, State, Ayatollah Ruhollah J Khomeiny, publicly threat- - ened to make Mr Nazih .■stand trial for treason at the s end of a week-long battle by Mr Nazih to resist the II clergy’s pressure for his rlousting.

i The daily "Islamic Repub- 1 mouthpiece of the rul>'ing clergy, reported leaders i -of N.1.0.C.’s Islamic assbci-l 'jations as saying Mr Nazih ‘ ■.had been trying to provoke I i|an oil strike’ by making pay] •; awards to those who did not I need the extra money. Iran derives more than 90 - per cent of its foreign-ex-i change earnings from oil r exports. The target for ■ Iran’s crude output is four • million barrels a day, which I is two-thirds of what it was under the Shah. f His NZPA-Reuter corres--1 pondent, Harvey Morris, re- ■ ported from the world’s] i largest oil refinery at Aba-i » dan in south-western Irani ■ that a N.1.0.C. spokesman} ; had said work had not been! > disrupted as a result of Mr Nazih’s dismissal.