درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Foreign investment contracts are one of the major ways to absorb the technology in the oil and gas industry. Studies show that governments and investing companies prefer to gain more profit, control economic resources and political influence by investing financially and technically in developing countries unless buying foreign technology and intellectual property rights directly. On the other hand, for developing countries, the sum of foreign capital and technology within a contract is a great opportunity for advancement, provided that the choice of technology transfer is made with due regard to the country's needs, requirements and economic future. In this article, after examining the relationship between investment and technology transfer and its various methods in the oil and gas industry, we will analyze the constraints and barriers of technology transfer through foreign investment in developing countries (including Iranian law) and provide a solution. Keywords: Foreign Investment, Technology Transfer, Oil & Gas Industry, Mutual Trade, Intellectual Property Rights.

The main purpose of this research is to explain why and how the stock liquidity affects the default risk of petrochemical and petroleum products companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. The study used experimental data and parametric tests in order to estimate the relationship between stock liquidity and default risk through information efficiency and corporate governance roles of stock liquidity. The present research is applied in terms of purpose and is a descriptive-correlative study. All data required regarding the stock liquidity, price, trading volume and days, stockholder ownerships, etc., were extracted from Rahavard Novin database software. To investigate the relationship between variables, the multivariate regression analysis model using OLS method was applied in Eviews platform. The empirical findings showed that there is a significantly negative relationship between stock liquidity and default risk of petrochemical and petroleum product companies listed in TSE and also stock liquidity can affect the default risk through reducing the information asymmetry in the stock pricing process and strengthen the corporate governance. These results could provide visible signals based on the realities of the market in order to improve models to assess and predict the risk of default and lead managers and decision makers of suppliers, customers, partners and stakeholders, to conclude more flexible contracts with petrochemical and petroleum products companies and ultimately better mitigate business risks.

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of environmental policies including price and non-price policies on natural gas demand in Iranian industrial sector. For this purpose, considering the dynamic nature of our panel data, we adopted Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) method to estimate natural gas consumption for 22 Iranian industries from 2005 to 2015. The results illustrated that the annual average of natural gas consumption has been rising, reaching five times higher than the consumption of other fossil fuels. Among the industries, other non-metallic minerals industry with 8 percent of the total production and more than 25 percent natural gas consumption have been regarded as the most natural gas consumer industry. The results of our GMM model showed that non-price environmental policies are more effective than the price policies on natural gas consumption. Overall, in non-price policies, energy intensity seems more important comparing to CO2 emission reduction. We recommend that governmental energy policies should focus more on energy intensity improvement in Iranian industries through technological enhancement and fuel energy saving regulations.

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.

Today, random and intelligent risks have made supply management disruptive much more than before. Over the past decade, many supply network (SN) disruptions in oil and gas industry have been due to the deliberate risks posed by international sanctions. Undoubtedly, resilience in general and resilience of SN in particular has been a systematic approach for firms and organizations to deal with disruptions. This study aimed to measure, assess and compare the resilience of SNs in oil and gas companies based on mixed approach: Systematic Literature Review (SLR) and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). The statistical population of the study consisted of 11 subsidiaries of the National Iranian Oil Company. A robust systematic review of the literature was conducted to collect all the crucial components of supply network resilience (SNR) from 608 articles that ultimately resulted in 40 key factors based on the context-intervention-mechanism-outcome logic (CIMO-logic). Quantitative analysis was carried out in the upstream sector of 3 subsidiaries of Iranian Central Oil Fields Company (ICOFC) including South Zagros, East and West Oil and Gas Production Companies. The results demonstrated a relationship between components and their measurement in upstream companies. A further finding is that South Zagros Oil and Gas Production Company was more resilient than the other two companies.

Companies have access to a variety of financial resources to implement available profitable investment projects, to settle overdue debts, to increase working capital, and to pay dividends to shareholders. These resources include cash from operating activities and the sale of assets (as intra-organizational sources of financing), borrowing loans from the bank, issuance of bonds, and issuance of new shares (as outside the organization sources of financing). Financing and its effects on the returns and risk of the company choose sources that minimize financing costs. Then, to prioritize the parameters, the hierarchical method, Topsis, and ANP were used. The results of this study indicated that the factors of efficiency, cost, sustainability, being operational, fairness, and transparency have been the most important criteria for choosing the financing method, as well as forming sub-consortia, receiving facilities, issuing participation bonds, establishing investment companies, presence in the securities market, creating a shareholder plan, and finally attracting foreign capital have been identified as financing methods. Also, the transparency of the financing method in the surveyed companies to identify the appropriate financing method had the least importance.

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.