Tehran, Iran, December 15
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Iran has not improved its legal and bureaucratic infrastructure well enough to be able to attract foreign investment as the newly-unveiled Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) model has envisioned, Bahram Emami Zadeh, CEO of Andisheh Varan Engineering and Consultation (AVEC), said.
While capital for oil projects is missing, some sort of latency has kept Iran apart from the world's capital centers to improve the required conditions to be able to attract investment, he told Trend.
"I think after sanctions are lifted, some 90 percent of our capital will be again provided through government venues, as witnessed by the attendance of governmental officials in related forums to acquire latest news about new policies," he noted.
The IPC model requires foreign companies to come to Iran with capital and technology. It also requires the companies to choose an Iranian partner for the executive affairs of the projects they pick.
Regarding the Iranian partners, Emami Zadeh said while Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has asked for Iranian companies to act as regulatory bodies between the foreign companies and the Iranian Oil Ministry, Iranian companies could have been managing the projects.
Iran's oil industry has gone decrepit under harsh economic sanctions which banned foreign companies from providing capital, service, or technology to the country.
The country is looking forward to the removal of the sanctions to make up for past underdevelopment.
During last month Tehran hosted 137 companies from 45 countries for a two-day conference, during which legal generalities of Iran's new model of oil and gas contract (Iran Petroleum Contract, or IPC) were introduced. More details about the contracts will be unveiled at a conference likely to be held in London in February 2016.