Knowledge management in historical path of upstream contracts of Iran’s oil industry

After a century from the extraction of petroleum in Iran as the owner of big hydrocarbon reserves in the world, the country has not achieved a fully comprehensive and enhancing technical knowledge of oil contract to maximize its economic capacity of the national hydrocarbon fields. In this study, considering the importance of knowledge management as a necessary factor, we have investigated concessions, production sharing and service oil agreements in Iran from the aspect of knowledge management before and after the Islamic revolution. The results show that contracted oil concessions are far from knowledge approach and none of the fields of the knowledge management achievement can be found. Both Production sharing and service oil contracts papered the way only for knowledge acquisition without a letter of guarantee. After the Islamic revolution, in spite of knowledge and technology development in recent decades, there is no strategic condition in buy-back oil contracts for the achievement of the knowledge management dimensions. Technology transfer is only limited to undesirable human resource training in the third generation of these contracts.