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2 September 2013 - 21:11

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has ordered a review of buy-back oil contracts in a bid to make them more attractive for potential foreign investors, a senior oil official says.

Abdol-Mohammad Delparish, director of consolidated planning at the National Iranian Oil Company, said on Monday that Zanganeh’s instructions involve “structural changes to oil contracts” in view of “inviting famous domestic and foreign oil companies.”


“Special groups have been established in relevant bodies… to review the contracts in order to make them more attractive and facilitate the entry of foreign investors into this industry,” he said.

He added that different generations of buy-back contracts in the petroleum industry are currently being examined


“Production sharing contracts in the petroleum industry are not our priority and our focus is on other types of contracts including buy-backs which have already been experienced,” Delparish noted.

Under a buy-back deal, the host government agrees to pay the contractor an agreed price for all volumes of hydrocarbons the contractor produces.

Zanganeh has said that Iran will soon increase its oil exports in defiance of restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic's energy sector.

The minister recently voiced Iran’s willingness to cooperate with any foreign energy firms which could help the country’s oil exploration and extraction.

With 137.6 billion barrels of proven reserves, Iran enjoys the world's fourth largest crude deposits, and the second largest gas reserves, estimated at 29.61 trillion cubic meters (tcm)

 

News ID 185193