خلاصة:
Adopting a combined approach in Iran’s up-stream oil and gas contract or, in other words, continuing the contractor’s contractual presence in the production stage after the exploration and development phase on one hand, and stablishing a direct relationship between the contractors’ revenue and field production level on the other hand can create situations in which the contractors of the adjacent contract areas compete to extract as much as possible from the reservoir. The struggle of governments with the economic and environmental issues caused by these competitions has led to the legislation of some regulations in unitizations of adjacent areas contracts and consequently the Inclusivity of the Unitization and Unit Operating Agreements. The conventional tariff model proposed by the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators can be considered as an attempt to gather the governing customs in order to develop a standard sample contract. The application of this contractual model in Iran requires the observance of the national law demands such as the mandatory rules of contract law, so from this point of view, acceptance of possibility of concluding these contracts is accompanied by some doubts at the first glance. Legal analysis of challenging points shows that considering some precautions that are discussed in this article lead the contracts to be synchronized with Iranian law requirements.
ملخص الجهاز:
Aligning Unitization Contracts of Adjacent Internal Oil Resources with the Requirements of Iranian Law Date of Receipt: 2021/05/15 Date of Final Acceptance: 2021/09/13 1 Leila Joneidi 2 Seyyed Fariduddin Tabatabaei Sotoudeh Abstract Adopting a combined approach in Iran's upstream oil and gas contracts, or in other words, the continuation of the contractor's contractual presence from the exploration and development phase to the production phase on one hand, and establishing a direct relationship between the contractor's revenues and the field's production levels on the other, can create conditions where contractors of adjacent contractual areas, upon discovering a common oil resource between contractual areas, compete to extract as much as possible from the reservoir.
Some legal issues, such as the difference in perceived rights for the contractor regarding oil ownership in different legal systems, and also the initial ignorance regarding the participation share of each part and its reflection in the model contract published by the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, may at first glance seem compatible with some of the mandatory regulations in the national legal system of Iran.
Therefore, providing an analytical answer to the question "Can the unitization and unit operating model contract introduced by the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) have the necessary compatibility with the mandatory rules of Iranian law, subject to certain adjustments?" is examined as the primary research question.
3. Unitization of Contractual Areas in Iran Contractual relationships between the contractor and the employer, according to prevailing international custom in oil and gas upstream contracts, generally include three stages: exploration, development, and production.
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