Structural and Comparative Analysis of Optimal Levels of Investment and Oil Production in Upstream Contracts of Buyback, Production Sharing & Iran Petroleum Contract

Production Sharing Contract (PSC), Buyback Contract (BBC) and Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) are considered as three rival contracts in upstream oil & gas field in Iran. So, decisionmakers in the process of selecting a suitable contract from the set of three mentioned contracts consider a set of jurisprudential, legal and economic conditions about these contracts. In this paper with the aim of explaining the economic capacity of the three contracts in comparision with each other and based on Static Optimal Methods, we compare these contacts in terms of two important economic indices of optimal investment and oil production and then, we prioritize them. Finally, we have concluded that upstream contracts of Production Sharing, Iran Petroleum Contract and Buyback are ranked in the first, the second and the third place from the perspective of optimal investment level, and from the perspective of optimal oil production level, in case of more participation of private sector and less interference of public ector, these contracts are ranked the first, the second and the third, respectively.