German, Malaysian and English companies have directly or indirectly expressed eagerness to invest in Iran's lucrative oil projects, CEO of Iranian Central Oil Fields Company said.
"We are awaiting the unveiling of Iran's revised oil contract to assess the intentions of foreign firms and weigh our options before making decisions," Salbali Karimi told ILNA.
Iran is scheduled to unveil the revised version of its oil contracts, known as Iran Petroleum Contract, in a conference in Tehran next month before a full-fledged unveiling in London on February 22-24.
Officials say Tehran has sweetened the terms of the new contracts to attract billions of dollars in foreign direct investment for up to 50 oil exploration and production projects.
"We will enter into deals with interested parties once their proposals are officially put forth and evaluated," he said. "In the process, economic justification, compliance with our technical knowhow and accordance with the interests and goals of the National Iranian Oil Company will be taken into account."
Karimi deemed that lifting of sanctions will accelerate the development of oil and gas fields as well as resolving issues Iran has been facing regarding money transfer, letters of guarantee and quality of equipment.
"As another byproduct of sanctions removal, investors will introduce new enhanced oil recovery technologies to boost output from joint fields," he said.
"A majority of the company's joint fields are currently at the production stage."
The ICOFC expects its oil production to increase by 75 million barrels in the current year. To reach that goal, a total of 22 new wells need to be drilled and 10 well workovers performed. The CEO had earlier said production is estimated to rise to 400 million cubic meters of gas and 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, according to the company's new plan.
According to official statistics, there are 45 gas, 24 oil and 2 oil and gas fields in Iran's central areas, holding an estimated 8.5 billion barrels of oil and 18 trillion cubic meters of gas.
