Iran has put the finishing touches on a new framework for its upstream oil and gas contracts that it hopes could lure companies back to its lucrative, yet technology starved, hydrocarbons sector, an official at Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum said this week. A committee, established by Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, was tasked some months ago with revising Iran’s oil and gas contracts, with a view to making them more attractive to international oil companies (IOCs). And after more than six months of discussions with both local and foreign experts, Tehran feels it has arrived at a suitable final framework for its new upstream deals, dubbed the ‘Iran Petroleum Contract’ (IPC).

“At present, from an expertize point of view, the model of these [new] contracts has been finalized,” Mehdi Hosseini, head of the Ministry’s contract revision committee told the local press on 22 April. (CONTINUED - 573 WORDS)