Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 21
By Dalga Khatinoglu, Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
An Iranian oil official has expressed hope that a plan drawn by the government aimed at attracting $80 billion in foreign investment to develop the country’s oil sector will be realized by 2021.
Saeed Ahangaran, secretary of Society of Iranian Petroleum Industry Equipment Manufacturers (SIPIEM) told Trend that given the diplomatic efforts made by President Hassan Rouhani’s government aimed at expansion of cooperation with international companies following the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/ nuclear deal) , the plan seems realistic and achievable.
According to the government’s plan the country needs to put in $100 billion worth of investment in the country’s oil and gas upstream sector by 2021, he added.
The plan envisages luring $80 billion from foreign sources and the rest will be provided by the domestic resources.
Elaborating on Iran’s new model of oil contracts namely Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC), he speculated that the country’s Oil Ministry will strike its first IPC contracts with international companies since late October.
Iran offers 49 oil and gas projects for foreigners based on IPC.
Iranian government plans to get international oil companies to make investments in Islamic Republic’s oil industry and transfer state of the art oil technology to the country based on IPC contracts in the post sanctions era.
Saeed Ahangaran noted that the government’s experts have drafted a new oil contract after studying several models of international oil contracts for both upstream and downstream sectors.
Saying that under the IPC terms, domestic and international companies will jointly operate the projects handing over the operation to each other on a regular basis, he added that the government has nominated 10 Iranian companies as the partners of the foreign companies.
Most of international sanctions against Iran were lifted following the implementation of the JCPOA Jan. 16.