With international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear pro-gramme due to resume in Vienna next week,Tehran is working on new upstream terms that it hopes will secure foreign investment if sanctions are dropped. Iran’s oil ministry aims to overhaul its contract terms by April.But while Tehran insists that the new contract will be more attractive than old buy-back models,uncertainty over public and political approval is pushing the oil ministry towards settling for an enhanced technical service agreement (Etsa)rather than production-sharing agreements(PSAs). But Iranian officials have been sending mixed signals over whether PSAs,which many in the country would deem unconstitutional,are still under consideration.“If today we see many countries in the world are using this type of con-tract,it means that these contracts have not been bad,”Iran deputy minister for planning and supervision on hydrocar-bon reserves Mansour Moazzami says.
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