Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.24
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran requires a new type of cooperation with foreign investors in its oil projects, the Tasnim News agency quoted Akbar Torkan, advisor to Iran's minister as saying on February 24.
"Certainly, we need foreigners, but we should establish a new form of cooperation with them," Torkan added. "We should lower risks and minimise uncertainties in order to give foreign companies assurances to participate in the projects."
Iran will offer foreign partners incentives to find and pump crude and natural gas and will pay some fees in barrels as it seeks to boost income once international sanctions are lifted, Bloomberg reported.
New contracts Iran is currently developing will offer higher fees for riskier exploration and production projects, oil-ministry officials said at a conference inTehran yesterday.
Local and international executives attended a two-day meeting to discuss new rules that would govern oil and gas production if Western curbs on Iranian energy exports are removed. The committee revising the Islamic republic's contract model presented the terms called the 'Iran Petroleum Contract'.
"We've analysed all the contracts in the market right now, all available beneficial models and this is what we've come up with," Mehdi Hosseini, a government energy adviser who leads the ministry committee, said at the conference. "This is a good model, with flexibility."
Iran, a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is discussing limits to its nuclear programme in exchange for the removal of Western sanctions on its financial and energy industries.
It agreed with six world powers on Feb. 20 to start negotiations next month that may achieve a long term nuclear accord before a six-month interim deal expires. The U.S. and its allies believe Iran may be seeking to develop atomic weapon technology, a claim Iran denies.
Raising production is "our major responsibility," Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said at the conference.
Edited by S.M.