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The SEO also plans to introduce warrants—contracts giving the option to buy underlying shares at a later date—following the earlier introduction of put and call options. The SEO’s religious board is reviewing a proposal for warrants, which must be structured to obey Islam’s ban on pure monetary speculation. “The derivatives market has a lot of room to grow. Options were introduced in 2013, but the first trades were done in 2016,” Payam Afzali, managing partner and head of investment banking at Tehran-based Kian Capital Management, was quoted as saying.
Warrants may not attract major investment in the short term but could be used to make bonds and equities more appealing to investors, he added. Meanwhile, the SEO is considering whether to introduce insurance-linked securities so that domestic insurers can offload some portfolio risk in the capital markets, Pireh said.
LS are typically tied to natural catastrophes such as earthquakes and offer high yields; investors can lose their principal if a catastrophe loss is triggered. They could serve as an alternative to reinsurance cover, which is scarce as sanctions mean Iran is shut out of global reinsurance markets such as Lloyd’s of London.
9.0 Industry & Sectors 9.1 Sector news
9.1.1 Oil & gas sector news
An Iranian official has claimed the country is 90% self-sufficient in the construction of petrol station equipment but admitted that many existing sites need significant investment, Mehr News Agency reported on February 18.
Despite a relaxation of ownership rules in petrol stations in Iran during the Rouhani administration, the majority of locations currently operational remain in the hands of government owned-players and semi-state-owned companies. All petrol stations, either government-owned or in private hands, receive petrol from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and its subsidiaries.
Ali Monshi, the director of the Planning and Studies Centre for Filling Stations in Iran, said that the majority of equipment in the construction of creating petrol stations is made locally.
There are some 7,000 currently operational filling stations across Iran, with several dozen more planned for intercity highways currently in the pipeline, he said at a recent fair in Tehran promoting the industry.
He pointed to the job generation through launching more filling stations in the country and said, “filling stations can provide 70 different jobs.”
He added that due to a lack of investment in the industry some modern technologies used abroad were not available in Iran. Monshi further added that at least three-quarters of Iranian filling stations need complete overhaul and renovation.
Petrol prices in Iran remain heavily subsidised and are officially the second cheapest on the planet for a litre of petrol due to the heavy devaluation of the rial over the past 12 months.
36 IRAN Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com