Public Ownership of Oil Resources and Its Impact on the Choice of Contractual model in the Upstream Sector of Oil and Gas Industry

Ownership of oil resources has always been one of the challenging issues at national and international levels. The acceptance of public ownership of oil reserves in Constitution of Iran in the jurisprudential concept of “Anfal” has led to the emergence of this notion by some of the oil industry's leaders and experts, that, apart from the service contract model, the use of other contractual models is contrary to the concept of public ownership of oil resources. The precise examination of the status of public ownership of oil resources in the countries of Venezuela, Indonesia, Iraq and Iran on the one hand; and the assessment of the nature of each of petroleum contractual models and their application in these countries shows that, contrary to what is perceived in Iran's oil industry; public ownership of oil resources does not constrain the use of participation method in the upstream sector of oil industry, but concession model is the only model that contradicts the notion of public ownership of oil resources.