Legal aspects of Iran’s new oil contracts
There is no legal obstacle for signing Iran’s newly designed oil and gas contract model, known as Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC), or even production sharing agreements (PSAs) with foreign companies, a petroleum ministry official told Trend. IPC was approved on July 12 after some amendments by Iran’s Resistance Economy Headquarters to replace the old, less popular buyback agreements to attract foreign companies. According to the Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs and Trading Amir Hossein Zamaninia, it is expected that the first agreement with a foreign company over developing an upstream oil and gas project, based on IPC, will be signed in three to four months. Iran unveiled the generalities of IPC in November 2015, offering 49 oil and gas projects to foreigners. Since then, some hardliners criticized the government “on abusing the national interests by sharing the reserves with foreigners.” In IPC, Iran has kept its sovereignty over its hydrocarbon reserves, but pa