About Shana News Agency

Shana News Agency

The Shana News Agency, formally the Oil and Energy Information Network, is the specialist news agency of Iran's Ministry of Petroleum, based in Tehran and publishing at shana.ir in Persian and in English. It is the reference wire for Iran's oil, gas, petrochemical and refining industries, carrying the statements of the oil minister and the national oil, gas, refining and petrochemical companies, as well as market analysis and coverage of OPEC. Iran's oil minister Mohsen Paknejad has described Shana as the specialised media outlet for Iran's oil industry, saying it has earned international credibility and serves as a reference for the industry's news. Because oil and gas dominate Iran's exports and state revenues, Shana's reports on production, prices, contracts and sanctions are followed closely by energy markets and by foreign media, which cite it as the oil ministry's own news service.

Origins and institutional position

Shana was created to give Iran's petroleum industry a dedicated information channel. International business reporting in July 2002 recorded Iran's move to launch an oil and energy industry news agency, the step from which Shana dates its existence. The agency sits inside the structure of the Ministry of Petroleum, the government ministry established in 1979, in the months following the Islamic Revolution, to exercise Iran's ownership of and sovereignty over its oil and gas resources. The ministry works through four main subsidiaries, the National Iranian Oil Company, the National Iranian Gas Company, the National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company and the National Petrochemical Company, supervising exploration, extraction, marketing and the sale of crude oil, natural gas and petroleum products. Shana is the news voice of that entire structure: when a subsidiary announces a production record, a field development, a refinery project or an export figure, it is usually Shana that publishes it first.

Coverage of oil and gas production

Production news is the core of Shana's file. It reports the output figures and plans of the National Iranian Oil Company and its producing subsidiaries, such as the report that Iran had recorded its highest crude oil production in seven years, with output rising about 10 per cent in the Iranian year 1403 compared with 1402 and a further 3.5 per cent in 1404, according to the company's director of production monitoring. It covers the National Iranian South Oilfields Company, Iran's largest oil producer, and its plans to raise processing capacity and crude output, and it follows the development of shared fields, pressure-boosting projects and flare-gas recovery programmes. Its reporting from the South Pars gas field, the giant offshore field Iran shares with Qatar and which supplies the bulk of Iran's natural gas, is continuous, covering maximisation of winter production, refinery repairs and the restoration of damaged processing capacity.

OPEC and international energy diplomacy

Shana is Iran's principal channel for OPEC news. It covers OPEC and OPEC+ ministerial meetings, reproduces OPEC data on member production, including the report that Iran increased its oil production by 374,000 barrels per day in 2024 year on year, and publishes analysis from the petroleum ministry's own Directorate of OPEC and International Energy Fora. Its standing in that world was recognised in July 2025, when OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais wrote to Ali-Mohammad Mousavi, Iran's OPEC governor and deputy oil minister for international affairs and trade, expressing deep appreciation for Shana's pivotal role as a media partner in the success of the 9th OPEC International Seminar. Shana marked OPEC's 65th anniversary in 2025 with historical coverage of the organisation's founding at the Baghdad Conference of September 1960, at which Iran was one of the five founding members. For energy journalists, a Shana report of an Iranian minister's remarks at an OPEC meeting is often the primary record of Iran's position.

How the world cites Shana

Because the agency speaks for the oil ministry, its reports carry weight in international markets and are routinely cited by foreign outlets. In February 2016, when oil ministers were negotiating a production freeze, the Maritime Executive reported the position of Iran's petroleum minister Bijan Zangeneh as stated to Shana, including his support for cooperation between OPEC and non-OPEC producers to stabilise the market. In December 2015 Press TV's report that Iran's heavy crude had fallen below 30 dollars a barrel, to 29.4 dollars in the week ending 18 December, was sourced to Shana's price reporting, which also gave the average prices of Iranian heavy and light crude since March of that year. Energy Intelligence, the specialist industry publisher, has quoted Zangeneh "told a conference" via "the oil ministry's news service Shana", a typical form of attribution. Such citations show Shana functioning as the authoritative first source for Iranian oil policy statements, in the way that markets treat the wires of other major producing states.

Petrochemicals, refining and distribution

Beyond upstream oil and gas, Shana covers Iran's petrochemical industry, one of the country's largest non-oil export earners, reporting the National Petrochemical Company's projects, governance agreements and production performance, including the sector's restoration of capacity after wartime damage. It covers refining and distribution in similar depth: the programme to make the refining and distribution chain smart through nationwide metering and monitoring, compressed natural gas consumption, which it reported had risen by about 12 per cent after changes to gasoline pricing tiers while gasoline use fell by roughly 3 per cent, and the maintenance of fuel supplies to Tehran and the northern regions through the pipeline network. This downstream coverage makes Shana a record not only of Iran's oil diplomacy but of the domestic fuel system on which Iranian daily life depends.

War, sanctions and reconstruction coverage

Shana's recent file reflects the conditions under which Iran's oil industry operates. It has reported the reconstruction of damaged oil facilities, including the South Pars refineries and the Jam Petrochemical, Damavand Energy and Mobin Energy companies in the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone, with acting oil minister Hamid Bovard urging faster work and amended contracts to speed it. It reported the oil minister's account that Iran's crude oil exports had not stopped for a single hour throughout a 40-day war, alongside rising production, accelerated flare-gas recovery and an end to diesel imports. Sanctions form the constant background to its reporting, and senior officials use its platform to argue that the industry has learned to operate under them. In this respect Shana is both a trade wire and a strategic communication channel, documenting the industry's resilience for domestic and foreign audiences alike.

Editorial standards and ministerial expectations

The expectations placed on Shana by its owner are a matter of public record. Speaking in August 2026, Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said the media should serve as a clear mirror of society and government institutions, reflecting realities without distortion, and he said Shana, as the specialised media outlet for Iran's oil industry, had earned international credibility and should further strengthen its standing by reporting news accurately, professionally and promptly, describing it directly as a reference for Iran's oil industry news. A year earlier, the minister's message on Journalists' Day was carried by the agency in the same vein. The agency's English service, publishing under the dateline form "SHANA (Tehran)", applies the same standards to its outward-facing output, which is written for the international energy press, traders, analysts and diplomats who monitor Iranian production and policy.

Place among Iran's specialist agencies

Shana belongs to the family of Iranian specialist agencies created to serve particular sectors, alongside services for agriculture, cultural heritage, books and the Quran, but its beat is the commanding height of the Iranian economy. Oil and gas revenues underpin the state budget, fund the government and dominate exports, so the oil ministry's news service is inevitably one of the most consequential specialist agencies in the country. From its launch in the early 2000s, Shana has developed from an industry information network into the recognised reference point for Iranian energy news, praised by the OPEC secretariat for its partnership, quoted by the international energy press, and described by the oil minister himself as the reference for the industry's news. For anyone following Iranian oil production, OPEC diplomacy or the petrochemical sector, Shana is the first draft of the record.