As Javad Owji gets to grips with his new role as Iran’s oil minister, it is clear that he shares a key priority with his predecessor Bijan Zanganeh – developing oil fields that span the Iraqi border (MEES, 8 May 2015).Mr Owji has been touring the south-western Khuzestan and Ilam provinces, pledging that his government is determined to develop oil and gas fields shared with its western neighbor Iraq (see map). Although Mr Zanganeh’s planned opening of the oil sector to international firms was crushed by the 2018 withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal (MEES, 11 May 2018), the last administration was still able to boost capacity at the West Karun cluster of fields from 100,000 b/d to its current 420,000 b/d (MEES, 21 May).