Petroleum Business Review (PBR)

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the financial performance of provincial gas distribution companies as affiliates for National Iranian Gas Company. To this end, we identified financial performance indicators in accordance with the requirements of NIGC through a review of theoretical foundations and interviews with a number of financial and planning experts and then prioritized using the Analytical Hierarchy Process method. These indicators lied in four groups of liquidity, capital structure, profitability and activity criteria, respectively. Then, the weighted indicators were analyzed using TOPSIS technique in Expert-Choice software and the final ranking of the companies was provided. The results showed that based on the identified criteria, provincial gas companies of Hormozgan, Yazd, Markazi, and Kermanshah had a favorable financial performance and Ilam, Mazandaran, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari and Zanjan provincial gas companies had a weak financial performance with respect to other companies in three years under review and some suggestions have been made in this regard.

Technology Transfer is a process which technology supplier can transfer technology to receiver through it by numerous activities. Now in Iran, lots of companies are facing difficulties in correct implementation of technology transfer. Varying complexity and specific nature of each of the technologies has been caused many problems to technology transfer process design. In the other hand, the lack of integration between the components of the technology transfer process and the lack of consistency in the way of transferring with the company's strategies has been caused additional difficulties. In this paper, we have attempted to design the model of technology transfer process in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical industry which includes three stages of " decision making, technology transfer and acquisition the knowledge".The model is derived from the literature survey and is developed based on the experiences with adding necessary elements in order to resolve the problems. In order to validate the model, it is used for DMD technology transfer in RIPI.

Though it is generally accepted that information asymmetry has an impact on capital structure policy, the nature of the information asymmetry is not well understood. Recent theoretical works and empirical evidences suggest that financing choice depends upon the information asymmetry about investment risk of the particular use of funds (Halov & Heider, 2012) (Rao, Mohanty, & Baxamusa, 2015). Consistent with this view, we analyzed the data gathered among 199 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during 2009-2016 by The Multiple Linear Regressions in order to test research’s hypotheses have been applied. We also examined the influence of Petrochemical industry on that relationship. The findings show that equity is used to fund projects with greater information asymmetry about their risk such as intangible assets and capital expenditure, while debt is used to fund investments with lower information asymmetry about their risk such as liquidity enhancement. We also found that the membership in petrochemical industry has no effect on the intangible assets and cash holding’s financing method, but concerning with capital expenditure and working capital the impact is significantly negative.

Currently, distribution of various types of petroleum products is performed exclusively by the government. The high price of land in metropolitan cities, lack of incentive for the private sector to invest in construction of filling station due to the low-income, have caused filling stations to be insufficiently available. One of the solutions to overcome this obstacle is to use the ability of the private sector for distribution of petroleum products. To reduce the government's ownership, the market structure for petroleum products distribution in the country needs to be changed. This change should be firstly done gradually and step by step, and secondly, the government has to monitor this issue at various stages. In this study, three stages are proposed for the market restructuring of the petroleum products distribution in the country, and the conditions and requirements for each stage are separately identified. For the private fuel distributing companies, the most important problem is the economic issue and having profit. On the other hand, since the product price is still subsidized in the country, therefore, it is indispensable that the amount of commission fee should be determined in such a way that the activity for private companies is economically justified. In this study, the amount of products commision fee is calculated concerning capital and operatational expenditures, using the engineering economics method in different situations by COMFAR version 3 software.

Knowledge Management Pattern for Project -based organizations using Grounded Theory (case study: Energy Industry) One of the most crucial strategic challenges of organizations for achieving success and competitive advantage is related to knowledge management (KM) activities .Project based organizations(PBO) of Energy Industry is responsible for producing , retaining and using huge amount of knowledge . In order to manage it effectively , it is necessary to use a customized KM pattern of which is fit into specific factors of the PBOs. The main objective of this paper is to present a customized knowledge management pattern considering PBO charachteristics of the under investigated Engery Industry by using Grounded Theory (GT). Needed information is gathered by semi-structured interview with experts and reviewing recent papers.By using open ,axial and selective coding,components of final model and their relations are found. Results showed nineteen main concept and five secondary concepts which are formed in “reasonal situations”,”intervention situations”,”strategies”, “central components” and “effects

As projects increase in size and complexity, they become more difficult to handle. One of these large and complex projects is oil and gas projects. The current controlling processes of projects are not able to detect the problems in early phases of the project and are rather late leading to extra time and cost. One solution is to find symptoms of problems in the early phases. Due to the importance of drilling projects in upstream sector, the main objective of this research is to identify the early warning symptoms of problems in drilling projects and to find the relationships between selected early warnings with project outcomes and problems of these projects. To reach that aim, the early warnings have been recognized through literature review and interviews with experts. Then, case study analysis is performed to find the relationships between early warnings and project outcomes. All cases have been selected from previous completed drilling projects in one of the oil fields of Iran. Findings show that there is a relationship between early warnings, project outcomes and projects problems.