"Iran has named western oil companies it wants back in its vast oil and gas fields once international sanctions are lifted. The oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said contract terms would be offered next April. The seven companies named are: Total of France, Royal Dutch Shell, Italy's ENI, Norway's Statoil, Britain's BP and US companies Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.
Iran has the world's fourth largest proved national reserves of oil – most of it cheap to produce – and is also home to the biggest proved reserves of natural gas, some 18% of the global total. But the oil companies were thrown out in a nationalisation programme following the 1979 revolution. Iran's share of world oil production fell from 55% in the 1970s to below 40% by 1997. Its gas output was negligible.
Oil companies from around the world drifted back in the 1990s, and Zanganeh oversaw their return as minister under the reformist government of 1997-2005.
Total returned to onshore fields in 1997 and Shell in 1999, both while Zanganeh was minister and both in defiance of the US sanctions of the time, even though in 1995 the then president, Bill Clinton, had blocked a Conoco project.
But Iran's production stagnated through the 2000s amid growing international tensions over its nuclear programme. The more effective sanctions instituted in 2012 have choked out foreign investment and sent output down to 2.65m barrels a day in November from an average of 4.3m in 2011.
Iran last month reached an interim deal with six western powers to limit its nuclear programme, under which sanctions on oil investment and trade with Iran may be lifted next year.
Speaking at an Opec meeting, Zanganeh said he was already talking with some companies, although so far not those from the US"
Source: theguardian.
