Iran’s Oil and Gas Legal Framework: from Exploration to Revolution

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to examine Iran’s legal and contractual framework for their petroleum, oil and gas industry. Basically, the legal and contractual framework of the Iranian oil and gas industry has been classified into three periods. The first period is from the exploration and discovery of oil in Iran to nationalisation (1901-1951), the second period is from nationalisation to revolution (1951-1979), and the third period is from revolution to the present day (1979-20016).Because each period has its own features and importance two articles will examine this topic. The first period (from exploration to nationalisation, 1901-1951), and second period (from nationalisation to revolution, 1951-1979), has been examined in this article with legal and comparative analysis, and the third period (1979-2016) will be covered in a later article.It should be mentioned that each contractual framework was a turning point regarding to opportunities and circumstances that they have been in that time and also each of those petroleum contractual regimes were a step toward to contractual framework evolution in Iran.