Economic and Legal Considerations of Oil Equipment Production Used in Upstream Sector in Iran with Emphasis on Technology Transfer in IPC

The country’s upstream oil industry manufacturing sector is one of the most important sectors of the industry which is still remarkably dependent to foreign countries. There are several reasons to convince us that the production of oil industry equipments inside the country is consequential, among them; the national security reinforcement, technology transfer and improvement, endogenous growth of national economy and expansion of export markets. After all, the improvement of upstream oil equipment production industry is in accordance with Iran’s principal policies. From studying the oil legal resources, we will find that from the beginning of concession contracts with IOC, the necessity of enforcement and applying internal workforce, and maximum supplying of oil industry equipment by related sectors inside the country, has been of high importance for oil authorities and also emphasized by lawmakers. In this survey we have used the economic and legal considerations as the frame work to study Iran’s new oil contract known as IPC. The basis for scientific commentary on the IPC is the Government's approval on Iran's upstream oil contracts. Assessment of these contracts in the mentioned framework shows that transfer of technology within the framework of economic and legal considerations and empowering domestic manufactures to achieve economic principles have not been possible for the sake of supplying our technological needs in the industry of oil equipment production in new oil contracts and is facing with unsolvable problems. Some of the problems are: false expectations technological needs of the industry of international oil companies and ineffectiveness of IPC in the promotion of domestic manufacturers of equipment. Other required indicators such as the taken legal indicators on the basis of legal considerations is also facing problems in IPC. For example lack of comprehensive support of the governing law in the contracts of domestic production.