Chairman of Oil Contracts Revision Committee in the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum said the new oil contracts lay down that foreign investors shall cooperate with a local partner in projects for development of oil and gas fields. “They will provide a great chance for the private sector in Iran,” said Mehdi Hosseini who was secretary of the Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC) Conference which was held in Tehran on November 28-29 in which the new contract models were unveiled. There are 500 billion barrels of untapped oil in the fields across Iran, he said in a TV program, adding “One percent addition to recovery of the fields will earn the country billions of dollars in revenue.” Responding to the comments by MP Ahmad Tavakkoli who participated in the program over the phone, Hosseini rejected the claim that Petroleum Ministry did not communicate details of the new contracts to the Parliament (Majlis). Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC) Conference concluded on Sunday in which participants from 137 major energy companies were introduced to new contract models to invest in Iran oil and gas industry. Hosseini told a press conference that the organizers of the international event achieved all the objectives they planned. The conference intended to introduce Iranian companies’ capacities to foreign firms, bring in major energy firms to Iran for negotiations, and introduce Iran’s achievements to foreign investors, he said. “All firms that enrolled in the conference took part in it. There will be meetings in future for those companies that did not take part in the Tehran conference.” He also said that the Ministry of Petroleum had to postpone unveiling its new contract models because of the sanctions. To a question on whether Iran managed to secure 30 billion dollar contracts as expressed by the minister of petroleum, he said the original forecast was 50 billion dollars but the ministry’s safe estimate which was announced was 25 billion dollars. Representatives from 137 petroleum heavyweights including Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Lukoil, to name a very few, attended the IPC Conference in Tehran. The representatives came from 45 countries. Totally, 335 companies have participated in the two-day event to be the first to know about the contract terms. A follow-up conference will be held in London on February 22-24 after the IPC event in Tehran.