London: BP officials met with Iranian oil executives late last month in Tehran as the British company seeks to return to the country once sanctions are lifted.

"BP has met with oil industry officials in Iran recently," a company spokesman said in an e-mail. "The details of those discussions are confidential. We have said for some time that we would be interested in reviewing opportunities in Iran once sanctions permit it."

Although BP wasn’t part of a business group that travelled to Tehran with UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in August when he opened the British embassy, Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said in June the company would be "very much" interested in investing in Iran when sanctions are lifted. The company is "fully in compliance" with sanctions until then, the spokesman said.

Oil producers including BP, which has worked in the Middle East since 1908, are interested in Iran because it holds the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves and biggest gas deposits, according to the company’s data. Iran earlier this year came to an agreement with the US and other world powers to curb its nuclear program in exchange for an end to economic sanctions.

Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, plans to sign a deal on exploration and production with Iran following changes in the nation’s tax laws, the company’s billionaire CEO Vagit Alekperov said on Friday. Eni, Italy’s largest oil producer, is interested in returning to Iran once sanctions end as long as it can first recover investments made in the country, CEO Claudio Descalzi said July 30.

Iran plans to increase crude output by two million barrels a day and natural gas production by about seven billion standard cubic feet from about 50 energy projects that will be offered to investors at a conference in Tehran next month, National Iranian Oil Managing Director Roknoddin Javadi said in Berlin on Thursday.

By Times Of Oman