TEHRAN, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Deputy Oil Minister for domestic construction and engineering affairs Hamdollah Mohammadnejad said that at least 145 billion U.S. dollars is needed to be invested in the country's oil industry within a ten-year period, Iran's Energy and Oil Information Network (SHANA) reported on Monday.

    Mohammadnejad made the remarks in his address to the opening ceremony of the first National Stakeholder System Development Congress in Oil Industry that began in Tehran on Nov. 22.

    Iran needs some 14 billion dollars annually to invest in oil industry to gear up to be the "region's first choice for value-added petrochemicals, OPEC's second producer and world's third gas producer," SHANA quoted him as saying.

    He also invited the domestic private sector to increase its share as much as 7 billion dollars a year to implement the projects.

    The visiting Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said here that Turkey may make a 12-billion-dollar investment in Iran on the basis of an agreement signed between the two countries in Tehran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

    The money would be spent on developing Iran's offshore gas fields in southern Iran and construction of a 1,800-kilometer gas pipeline from Assalouyeh, the gas field in southern Iranian province of Bushehr to Turkish border, the report added.

    Iran, which holds estimated recoverable oil reserves of 138 billion barrels and produces oil of some 4.2 million barrel per day(bpd), depends heavily on the foreign funds, especially in gas and oil sector, to fulfill its ambitions on developing the country.