Those favoring these deals consider them in conformity with national regulations while opponents believe that the time has come for an alternative in oil and gas agreements. Mohammad-Reza Moqaddam, director of planning for the National Iranian Oil Company, has announced changes in the buy-back deals. He said the latest changes authorize Iranian companies and contractors to explore oil reserves and propose programs for recovery. “In the past, foreign companies were assigned the task of identifying oil reserves,” he said. “Foreign companies were also to draw up major development plans (MDPs) but now domestic companies would handle this job in order to avoid underestimates,” he added. Moqaddam said Irans knowledge of MDP has risen and new changes in the buy-back deals would improve the countrys capabilities in this sector. He noted that production sharing agreements (PSA) were in contrast with the Constitution of Iran. An informed source said PSA contracts provided the ground for squandering national assets. He believes that buy-back deals allow the transfer of technological know-how without any need for the contractor to be present in the country. “We can say for sure that buy-back deals have nothing less than PSA contracts. They are the best contract to give guarantees to financiers,” he said. Minister of Petroleum Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh has already said foreign oil firms are still welcome in Iran but the world's fourth biggest producer wants to look again at the type of deals it signs with them. Buy-back deals have become the standard contract for foreign investors wanting a cut of the world's second biggest oil and gas reserves. Under these agreements, foreign firms operate Iranian oilfields for a period of about seven years and are compensated for their investment with a share of output. The state then repurchases the field. Some buy-back deals have gone sour for Iran. Iran has been at odds with Royal Dutch Shell over the offshore Soroush and Nowruz oilfields, which Shell developed with Japan's JJI and Iran's Oil Industries Engineering Company and has since handed back to Iran. Masoud Soltanpour, managing-director of Irans Marine Industries Company, believes that the country should no longer strike buy-back deals in view of its financial conditions. “Once our conditions were ripe for buy-back deals but now our economic conditions propose another sort of contracts,” he said. Jahan-e Sanaat, Saturday, Jan 28