Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep. 2 / Trend, S. Isayev, T. Jafarov
Iranian Oil ministry has invited six big foreign companies to invest in Iran's oil and gas sector, Fars news agency reported.
The companies that Iranian ministry has proposed to are: Shell (UK), Total (France), Repsol (Spain), Inpex (Japan), OMV (Austria), and Statoil (Norway).
Iran's ministry invited the companies to participate in development of oil and gas projects in the country.
Prior to the international sanctions being imposed on Iran, all of the mentioned companies have worked in Iran.
Previously, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has ordered a change in the structure of the ministry's oil contracts. The change aims at improving the situation to absorb more foreign investment.
Iran holds the world's third-largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves, and plans to use foreign companies for various oil and gas related projects.
The country's total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of extractable oil.
Moreover, heavy and extra heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.
The Islamic Republic has previously dismissed foreign investment in oil industry of the country, because of sanctions of U.S and West after that IRGC supported national companies, started investing to this sphere.