Few foreigners working in Iran on oil projects

January 22-2016

Only six international oil firms of the 43 once operating in Iran were definitely still doing business there last year, according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).  The rest were driven out by sanctions.

In a report issued last week, the GAO said it wasn’t certain about five other firms, but 32 companies that had once been active in Iran had all severed their ties with the country.

The six firms still active in Iran were all major ones—two from China and four from India.  They are listed in the table at left.

The five firms the GAO was unsure about were smaller companies—one each from South Korea, Venezuela and China and two from Malaysia.

The GAO has been doing these studies annually since 2012.  The full list of 43 firms in the table is the foreign companies the GAO identified as working in Iran’s energy sector in 2012.

The GAO made a massive computer search of open source news reports on business operations in Iran.  It rated a company as doing business in Iran if it found at least three news reports of such operations.  When there were just one or two news stories about a company operating in Iran, it listed the company’s involvement there as uncertain.