Iran is confident on closing two or three oil and gas deals with foreign companies under a new model of contracts in the current Iranian year that ends on March 20, 2017, the deputy for development and engineering at National Iranian Oil Company said in a statement.
"If everything goes according to plan, we will sign 2-3 contracts under the new model by the yearend," Gholamreza Manouchehri was also quoted as saying by Shana on Saturday.
Iran has been working on a new contractual framework, known as Iran Petroleum Contract, to bring back multinationals to its key oil and gas sector after years of underinvestment due to punitive sanctions imposed on its economy.
Officials say IPC is an upgrade to the buyback contract model that was used in Iran's petroleum industry over the past two decades. IPC offers more attractive terms and conditions, including higher rewards for risky projects as well as 20-year terms of cooperation that can be extended.
Officials have reiterated in the past few weeks that Tehran will close the first oil contracts under IPC framework in about two months. The government says it has addressed some of the concerns over the terms of the new contracts such as sovereignty over hydrocarbon resources and the method of payment to foreign companies.
------- Oil Policies
Currently, the third-largest producer of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Iran is determined to recoup the ground it lost in oil market under international sanctions.
In a statement on Friday, Mohammad Nahavandian, President Hassan Rouhani's chief of staff, said Iran is keen to reclaim its rights in the global oil market, adding that the country has added one million barrels to its daily output since the lifting of sanctions in mid-January.
The country has adopted a conciliatory but firm stance over a potential deal with other producing nations to freeze oil production to prop up prices.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has confirmed that he will participate in a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Algiers next month to discuss prices and a potential deal to freeze output.
The minister had refused to join a similar initiative in Doha, Qatar, earlier this year that ended in stalemate.
Zanganeh also said this week that Tehran will support every measure to help restore balance to the market, but expects others to respect its rights.
The country says it will discuss freezing output after reaching its pre-sanctions production level of 4 million barrels a day. It is currently pumping between 3.6 million and 3.8 million barrels a day, according to multiple sources.
Iran plans to boost crude production to 5.8 million bpd in 10 years, including 4.8 million barrels of heavy crude and 1 million bpd of gas condensates, a type of light, sweet crude found in the Persian Gulf's gas layers.
