Typescript drafts of the 1957 Petroleum Act

National Iranian Oil Company. Petroleum Act.

€ 15,000.00

Three typescript drafts in French and English of the 1957 Petroleum Act, a pioneering document of contractual relationships in the oil industry. The personal copies of Fuad Rouhani (1907-2004), later the first Secretary General of OPEC, with his annotations.

In the years immediately following the signing of the 1954 Consortium Agreement, the historic agreement that provided Western oil companies with 50% ownership in Iranian oil production, the fledgling national Iranian oil Industry received an enormous moral boost from the exploration activities conducted around Qom. The discovery of the Alborz oilfield and the Sarajeh gas field by the Iranian Oil Company not only proved Iran's growing technical capacity but it also helped to give Iran a prestige not hitherto enjoyed by any other oil producing and exporting country. Against this background it is therefore hardly surprising that when Enrico Mattei, the Chairman of ENI (the Italian State Oil Company), decided to look for oil supplies in the Middle East by offering new contractual terms, he should turn to Iran and that the government of Iran and the NIOC should greet him with open arms. What had prompted Mattei to come forward with the participation formula was his resentment at the treatment he had received from the major oil companies by being excluded from the Consortium Agreement. Since access to crude oil resources was of utmost importance for Italy and ENI, a way had to be found for entry into the Middle East oil scene. NIOC and ENI thus pioneered a new form of contractual relationship, thereafter known as 75/25 profit sharing, breaking the hallowed fifty-fifty arrangement and heralding a new era in international oil agreements.

Traces of stapling; margins somewhat worn.