The Iranian Ministry of Petroleum has adopted a new plan to sweeten terms of oil and gas contracts. Potential contractors can now file demand for exploration and production (E&P) license to develop oil and gas fields. Until recently, such licenses were granted exclusively to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), but now qualified E&P companies would be granted license. The advantage with this new policy is that the procedure is reduced and companies receiving such licenses might no longer need to sign any contract. Iran’s deputy minister of petroleum for supervision on hydrocarbon resources, Sajjad Khalili, tells Iran Petroleum E&P license would make the upstream oil sector attractive to potential investors.
