According to Press TV, Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh announced that his country will hold a conference to unveil its new model oil contract in Tehran instead of London.

This will take place on October 23, he said, adding that “The new oil contracts will be approved by the government within the next two weeks at maximum”.

He further explained that the London conference will go ahead, for the sake of the companies that will miss the event in Tehran.

The exploration blocks alone to be put on offer are worth about $185 b, with major brownfield investments planned as well

Under the new model contract the different stages of exploration, development and production will be offered to contractors as an integrated package, with an emphasis now on enhanced and optimal recovery.

Reuters had previously reported that the London conference to February 2016 from the original date of December 2015 – tentatively February 22-24.

Industry sources explained that Tehran was still waiting for Western sanctions to be lifted.

The conference has been already postponed four times before for much the same reason.

The switch from the current buyback model to the production sharing model came at the prompting of the oil majors like Total and Eni that had complained that they were making no profits at all on the existing system.

The influx of oil investments into Iraq had also lead to a rethink of the buyback system.