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MEOG Commentary MEOG
one of the world’s largest under-developed oil- fields, with estimates suggesting that it holds in excess of 30bn barrels.
Local players
The news will be portrayed as a boost for local Iranian players, however, this could not have panned out worse for Tehran. When sanctions were lifted, the focus of Iran’s approach to inter- national oil companies (IOCs) was that they could have access to world-scale fields at com- petitive rates in return for knowledge-sharing.
This never came to pass and Iran finds itself in much the same predicament of being reliant on foreign expertise, though now, the few partners it had during the previous sanctions regime – Chi- nese and Indian companies involved in various delayed projects – are now dropping off, leaving local firms to pick up the slack.
This has however, been largely beneficial for the downstream sector, which has seen pronounced growth as part of Iran’s “resist- ance economy” model, but the pressure on the upstream sector to generate revenues for the state is far greater.
olive branch
Seeking a way out of the current economic hardship, Zangeneh said on October 6 that Iran wants to improve relations and ties with all the countries of the Middle East and suggested the possibility of negotiations with Saudi Arabia on joint projects.
“We want to be friends with all regional coun- tries. Out mutual enemy is outside the Middle East,” Zanganeh said, in a clear reference to the US. “I have no problem meeting with Saudi Ara- bia’s oil minister,” he added.
The US, supported by Saudi Arabia, is pur- suing a policy of throttling Iran’s economy with sanctions in an attempt at forcing Tehran to accept a diminished role in the Middle East with even stricter controls on its nuclear development programme to ensure it remains entirely civilian.
As with previous efforts though, any kind of rapprochement by Zangeneh, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif or President hassan Rouhani is likely to be met with plenty of criticism from hardlin- ers in Tehran, who have been swift to remind more Western-thinking factions of government where the power really lies.
Week 40 08•October•2019 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P5
