The CEO of Italy's giant oil and gas company Eni said his firm is studying how to take part in Iran's energy projects after the Islamic Republic introduced new contract models last week in Tehran, according to Agi news agency.
“We need to fully understand the new contracts because they have just been presented, and they must be linked to the fields. These things must be put together and we have to understand about the guarantees,” Claudio Descalzi was quoted saying.
“We must study them and discuss them with the Iranian counterpart. An in-depth study is appropriate,” he added.
Representatives from 137 petroleum heavyweights including Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Lukoil, to name a very few, attended the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) Conference on November 28-29.
The representatives came from 45 countries. Totally, 335 companies participated in the two-day event to be the first to know about the contract terms.
Regarding return to Iran, Descalzi said, Eni has to “learn more about the possibilities”. “The sanctions are still active…There are many questions to be answered.”
“Since we are investing billions, I prefer to keep this money in our pocket, especially in light of low oil prices,” the CEO said in reference to the unstable crude oil market and plummeting prices in recent months.
Oil prices fell on Friday after OPEC members in a ministerial meeting decided to stick with the policy of maintaining crude production in order to preserve their market share.
Internationally traded Brent was down 61 cents, or 1.4 percent, at $43.23 at 12:56 p.m. EDT (1756 GMT), having fallen earlier this week to a low of $42.43, within cents of August's 6-½ year through. US crude was trading down $1.05, or 2.6 percent, at $40.03 per barrel.
Iran has announced it will hold an IPC follow-up conference in London on February 22-24 for the companies that could not attend the Tehran event.