Oil contracts worth tens of billions of dollars will be signed within the next two years, oil minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said in Tehran on Monday, quoted by state news agency Irna.
'The post-sanction era is a proper opportunity for cooperation of Iranian legal institutions with international companies,' he told reporters at the opening of an energy law conference in Tehran.
"A large number of foreign companies are mulling an active role in the Islamic Republic," Zangeneh said, denying reports that Iran had already granted oil concessions to Japan.
"No project has been granted to any foreign company or country," he said as Japanese foreign minister Fumio Kishida arrived in Tehran with a 23-member delegation for talks with Iranian officials.
Iran is devising new oil contracts that will be more favourable to foreign investors, focussing on the development of joint fields with neighbouring countries as well as on boosting extraction rates from oil wells, Zangeneh said.
Iran has the world's fourth-biggest oil reserves and the world's largest gas reserves and countries are scrambling to clinch lucrative energy deals as international sanctions are lifted under a landmark nuclear deal agreed in July.
In the wake of nuclear deal in July, Iran has hosted high-ranking officials and corporate executives of major energy companies from Germany, Spain, Austria, Italy, Japan, and France, Irna said.
