Energy Law Studies
Year:2020 | Volume:5 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:12

Main goal of this article is to study the concept of State Participation in Oil and Gas Projects. We tried to define the Concept, characteristics, reasoning and challenges around the phenomenon. State Participation as a way of cooperation between Host State(HS) and International Oil Companies(IOC), may be used as main contract or as a Term of Main Contract. Government reasoning for State Participation mainly focuses on taking Control and managerial tasks by the Government, achieve experience and expertise in operations and enhance in government take. Conflict of interest, problems in financing government’ s share of Costs and political interference in operations are main challenges of State Participation. Meanwhile, State Participation has some benefits: helps IOC and HS to improve their relations and mutual understanding, National Oil Companies (NOC) can take risk and responsibility for operations, NOCs can achieve experience and expertise in the field also, managerial knowledge of IOCs will be transferred to the NOCs.

In the near future, unconventional oil and gas production will continue to grow, possibly further lowering prices. The production of unconventional resources has certain and specific characteristics associated with negative environmental impacts which clearly are different from conventional resources. As a result, in some regions, the production of unconventional oil and gas is restricted or highly regulated. This paper specifically examined the Law of the Sea Convention 1982 and the Kuwait Regional Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment to find out whether these instruments are adequately equipped to address the production of unconventional oil and gas in the region. As a result, it is revealed that the Law of the Sea Convention 1982 and the Kuwait Regional Convention and its Protocols, in particular the Protocol on the Explosion and Disposal of Offshore Pollutants from the Continent did not explicitly addressed such activities. It can be concluded that their provisions are in general applicable to the production of unconventional oil and gas resources with respect to the ownership permitting and licensing. Nevertheless, environmental negative impacts of such activities are left untouched.

On 16 May 2018, ICSID issued its Award between the Masdar as a Dutch company against the Spanish. The court confirmed the violation of the Energy Charter by the Spain and sentenced it to compensate for damages to the plaintiff. Despite the challenges to the Court's jurisdiction raised by the Spanish in the various aspects such as personal, thematic and the priority of EU, The Court accepted its jurisdiction to hear the case. In this respect, the main basis of the plaintiff’ s pleadings and the court’ s analysis are based on the Energy Charter and the ICSID Convention; because both documents are mandatory for both Parties. As regard that one of the major achievements of this award is to examine the various aspects of the jurisdiction of ICSID in relation to the disputes arising from the renewable energy investment, the present Article seeks to analyze these issues.

In the last decade shale oil and gas reserves which were formerly not considered as oil and gas resources, with the advent of technology and the possibility of economic exploitation are considered as new energy reserves. This event is referred to as the "shale revolution" in the oil and gas industry. One of the mechanisms of risk management is the use of legislative and regulatory methods. In this paper, with regard to the experience of the countries active in this field, the control and management of shale project risks through legislation and regulation has been studied. To succeed in such projects in Iran, this paper concludes that the legal framework for the exploration and exploitation of shale reservoirs should first be established by the legislator and an institution composed of the Ministry of Oil, the Ministry of Energy (the water sector) and the environment should be established as the "regulator institution" Which can make necessary provisions in this area, grant licenses for exploration and extraction, and then oversee exploration and extraction operations in accordance with the laws and regulations

One of main topics of oil and gas law as a branch of public law is shared/common/transbourdary reservoirs expanded across the borders of a country and located in common boundaries of two or more neighbor countries. this matter isn’ t mentioned In Iran constitution provisions. The method of Management of these common resources has an important significance and various methods are employed in this relation. One of the most and best ways for operation and exploitation of these common fields is concluding unitization agreement between two neighbor countries by which beneficiaries of that common field conclude an agreement. In this research we surveyed the use of unitization of oil and gas analytically and descriptively and comparatively in the legal and executive procedures of both Iran and the United States and finally we suggested some offers with comparing these two legal systems. Since Iran has many shared oil and gas field with its neighbors this is necessary that oil ministry of Iran as the main arranger of upstream and downstream activities in Iran oil and gas industry should arrange and provide legal and political Requirements and structures for unitizing and operating these fields in best manner.

Since oil price is volatile and oil companies are affected, oil industry is bed of disputes. In this condition, finding appropriate method of compensation valuation is very important. We considered discounted cash flow method in compensation valuation in oil industry disputes. This survey showed that high volatile cash flow and oil company future contingency are the most obstacles for using of this method. Cash flow prediction based on oil price normalization, using scenario and sensitivity analysis are resolutions for removing obstacles of using discounted cash flow. For Managing investment in oil industry in Iran, it has been suggeted to agree on future cash flow and discounted rate before starting the project.

Nuclear law in international documents such as the 1960 Paris Convention and the 1963 Vienna often the operator of a nuclear installation shall be liable for nuclear damage. Whether the damage caused by a nuclear incident occurred in his nuclear installation or during the transport of nuclear material. Civil liability arising from nuclear incidents is of strict liability, and for this kind of responsibility, a causal relationship is needed. Therefore, factors that cause a relationship to be disrupted, such as force Major, gross negligence of the person, and third-party action can relieve the operator from his obligation or civil liability. The question raised by these documents is whether, despite the acceptance of the principle of exclusive liability in nuclear incidents, it is possible to identify exemptions of the operator. The responsibility of the operator follows two important principles: non-fault liability and his exclusive liability. There are exceptions to these two rules. result of the article concludes that despite accepting the exclusive liability of operator, these conventions have identified cases as exceptions to operator liability. Exceptions include "cases of non-responsibility", "cases of exemption or exonerations factors " and "cases of right of recourse operator" in the present article.

The South Pars Gas reservoir, as the largest natural gas supply source in the country, is one of the most important mega projects in Iran that has been used to develop its phases by various contractual methods. In this research a comparison between methods and the most appropriate contractual method has been identified which could be the basis for future development of gas fields or mega projects in the country. With the inclusion of criteria such as project risk for government, cost, quality, the integrity of implementation and production operations, project execution time, acquisition management know-how, by using “ Analytical Hierarchy Process” (AHP) method for contractual options, shows the superiority of the buy-back contract. The main features of the research that led to this conclusion are, the maintenance of the country's right to ownership, control of operations and costs by the state, transfer of technical know-how, acceptance of the risk of production and Perform 100% investment by the contractor and repayment it within 5 to 7 years after the commissioning of the field products.

One of the most controversial issues of recent years in the marine environment is the oil and gas leak, which has been a particular focus of international documents. With a brief overview of the development and evolution of the legal system governing maritime transport of goods and liquids, the conventions governing maritime transport of goods, namely The Hague, The Hague-Visby, Hamburg and Rotterdam, are examined. The impact of the recent convention on environmental pollution has been addressed by issues related to pollution caused by fuel leakage. We answer the question whether this legal regime has been able to solve the recent problems mentioned above at sea and how is the liability arising from the wrongful act? The initial premise of this study is that the Rotterdam Convention is a strong document that can be adopted by major governments in the maritime industry to be an effective step in protecting the marine environment and, if necessary, enacting a new definition of economic development, actively protecting the marine environment and preventing pollution.

One of new Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) requirements is participation of the foreign company(ies) with local company(ies) forming a consortium to jointly perform the petroleum operation of the field, and the main bedrock for performance of the joint operation is Joint Operating Agreement (JOA). There are basically two types of parties in a JOA: Operator and Non-Operator(s). The main role and duty of the operator is conducting and management of the day-to-day operation of the field, while, of the non-operators is providing timely funds for conduct and participating in decisions made in respect of the joint operation. While the operator, seek more freedom in performing its duties and obligations under a JOA, the non-operators desire higher level of control and more access to information to effectively protect their interests engaged in the main contract and JOA. In most JOAs, the non-operators are engaged in decision makings through the Operating Committee (OpCom) and its sub-committees. In Iranian version of JOA, the non-operators may supervise the operator’ s activities via the OpCom. The main duty of the OpCom is controlling and supervising the joint operations performed in the contract area by the operator and reviewing and approving the work programs and budgets.

ADRs have been introduced for decades as an appropriate way to resolve disputes in upstream international contracts in the oil and gas industry; an example of this is the adoption of the International Commercial Compromise Law. The question to be addressed here is whether or not the ADR in the IPC is a reference to all of its instruments or to a particular type of instrument and what is the ADR in fact. This article aims to respond to this by reviewing upstream international contracts in the oil and gas industry. The results of this paper confirm that the combination of two expert and arbitration processes can maintain long-term contractual relationships of the parties and be efficient in terms of time and finances. This research proves that peer-review is the best way to resolve disputes in new upstream contracts in the oil and gas industry called IPC.

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) Is A Global Treaty That Enacted To Protect Investments In Energy Sector. In This Treaty, Authors Of It, Appoint Obligations For States That Breach Of Those, Can Lead To Their Responsibility. In The Precedent Of Arbitration Tribunals, We Can See That Arbitrators Has A Freedom To Envisage Cause Of Action And Also We See In Multiplicity Of Causes, They Did Not Oblige Themselves To Envisage All Of Causes. Alse We Can See That The Problem Of Cause Of Action Is Not Analysis Enough And Therefore There Exist Ambiguities. In This Article We Figure On Evaluate This Subjects.