TEHRAN, Iran, Sept. 29. (AP) — The new government of Premier Fazollah Zahedi told the Iranian people today the nationalized oil industry is more than $87 million dollars in the red and foreign experts will be needed to get it in operation again. [sic—Fazlollah Zahedi]

A government statement said it will be impossible to carry on much needed reforms intended to aid the Iranian people “without solution of the oil problem.”

The government of Mohammed Mossadegh, the nationalist premier now awaiting trial as a traitor, nationalized the oil industry, including the $15,000,000,000 dollar Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, in May, 1951. [$15 billion figure is way overblown]

Since then, the government statement said, the business has run $87,349,846 in the red and has become saddled with millions of dollars of worn out road and rail equipment.

The statement told Iranians they will have to spend between $30,000,000 and $40,000,000 and employ 600 technicians if they want to restore the Abadan plant to the productive capacity it had before nationalization. The nation could, the statement said, restart the refinery at a cost of about $6,000,000 for approximately 25 per cent production, but such a course would mean throwing a large number of oil workers out of jobs.¹

The statement added: “While appreciating the pure and valuable sentiments of the brave Iranian nation, which has made all kinds of sacrifices to maintain its rights, this government hopes to take efficient steps towards exploiting this resource, which is the main source of the income of the Iran nation.”

In what is taken to be a broad hint that Iranians should prepare themselves to accept and use British and other foreign technicians at Abadan, the statement said: “Abadan’s power station, which has a capacity of 90,000 kilowatts is in a good and satisfactory condition, but the date on which some of its turbines should be examined is now past. This examination must be done by engineers of the factory which built the machines.”²

Most of the power plant equipment at Abadan is British.

The statement said the industry has been able to produce for export only a total of 135,000 tons of oil. The total income of the industry since its takeover is $1,860,000.