By Benoît Faucon
VIENNA--Sanctions have yet to be lifted on Iran, but signs that
Western oil executives are hungry to do business there were evident
this week at a stately hotel a few blocks from the Danube
River.
Called the Second South Caspian Region Petroleum and Energy 2015
Summit, the little-publicized conference drew energy executives
from Houston and London to Vienna where they shared coffee and cake
with Iranian government officials on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Among the international companies that sent executives was
Chevron Corp., according to attendees.
The presence of Western oil officials at an Iran-focused
conference was a sign of an emerging new landscape for doing
business in the Persian Gulf country now that sanctions could be
lifted sometime this year.
Iran and a group of Western nations led by the U.S. agreed this
month to a political framework for lifting a crippling set of
sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. A final deadline for an
agreement with specifics has been set for June 30. It isn't clear
when sanctions would actually lift.
Western executives have maintained clandestine contacts with
Iranian energy officials, and that isn't illegal. But it is still
viewed as a sensitive matter.
"Energy companies are clearly interested in Iran," said Peter
Harrell, a former top sanctions official at the U.S. State
Department and now a principal at consultancy Prospect Global
Strategies LLC.
A Chevron spokeswoman said: "We always act in compliance with
current laws and regulations."
Some of the secrecy has relaxed since the agreement.
"Before, when I met Iranian officials in Tehran, I had to
introduce myself as 'company-X'" for fear of leaks, said one
Western European oil official at the Vienna summit.
At this conference, he said, "I finally could say who was my
employer."
For Tehran, the conference represented a moment to promote its
vast resources. It holds the world's fourth-largest crude oil
reserves and the second for natural gas in fields that are
relatively easy and cheap to extract compared with more expensive
options in the U.S. that require hydraulic fracturing
technology.
Iran also needs Western technology, know-how and buyers. Since
the last Western oil companies left in 2010, Iran's oil production
has fallen by 27% to 2.7 million barrels a day.
Lola Bourget, a spokeswoman for the conference, said its focus
wasn't exclusively on Iran and noted that there were discussions
about other Caspian countries such as Azerbaijan. The event was
closed to the news media.
"This was a business-to-business meeting allowing experts to
network," Ms. Bourget said, adding that it wasn't publicized
because organizers considered it not relevant to the media.
Speaking outside the conference, Western oil officials said they
were still unsure how attractive doing business in Iran will be.
Previous terms offered by the Islamic Republic were so tough most
Western companies were unable to recoup their costs, though new
contracts are being written. Some Western officials are still
reeling from their past experience with Iran's punctilious
bureaucracy.
But the Vienna summit, held in the Palais Hansen Kempinski
Hotel, provided a setting for conversations between Iran and the
West.
In the lobby, a group of Western oil executives and an Iranian
oil official held forth over silvery teapots and fine china under a
giant chandelier. A European executive pulled out a printed Power
Point presentation touting his company's technological prowess in
extracting heavy oil. He said they could be put to task for aging
onshore oil fields Iran is planning to offer to investors in
September.
The Iranian official responded that his country was more
interested in technologies to developing light oil. The company
could offer that too, the executive said.
The exchange was hardly clandestine, taking place within earshot
of tuxedo-clad hotel staff.
Still, the executive, in an interview retelling the
conversation, didn't want to go on the record with his name and
company.
"We want to remain welcome everywhere," he said.
Write to Benoît Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for Chevron Corp.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US1667641005
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires