https://pbr.put.ac.ir/ Petroleum Business Review en daily 1 Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0330 Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0330 https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_242718.html This study aims to map the knowledge structure and elucidate the research trends related to the “sustainable supply chain” in the petrochemical industry. To this end, a total of 906 documents indexed in the Scopus database from 2000 to 2025 were collected and subjected to bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny tools. The results indicate that the scientific output in this field has experienced significant growth since 2010 and reached a maturity stage after 2019. Collaboration network analysis highlights the prominent role of the United States, the United Kingdom, and China in shaping the literature of this domain, alongside the gradually increasing contributions of countries such as Iran, Malaysia, and Brazil. Co-occurrence analysis of keywords reveals several established thematic clusters and interdisciplinary linkages among engineering, management, and environmental studies. By providing a comprehensive overview of the intellectual, conceptual, and social structure of the field, the findings of this study can serve as a foundation for guiding future research and supporting practical decision-making aimed at enhancing sustainability in the petrochemical supply chain. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_244659.html This article examines public liability and administrative accountability for environmental and climate risks and harms in Iran’s oil and gas sector. It explains how recurrent harms, including oil pollution, industrial accidents, and chronic air-quality crises, are intensified by regulatory omissions and fragmented institutional mandates. The study clarifies when governmental bodies and state-owned operators may bear responsibility not only for polluting conduct, but also for failures of prevention, supervision, and timely response. Using doctrinal legal analysis combined with institutional governance analysis, it maps the interaction between constitutional and statutory environmental duties, civil and criminal liability tools, and administrative-law mechanisms for challenging unlawful inaction. The findings suggest that Iran’s framework contains significant formal safeguards, yet accountability is often weakened by overlapping competences, under-enforcement, and evidentiary barriers in proving omission-based causation and attribution. Judicial review of administrative inaction provides an important corrective, but it rarely suffices to internalize environmental costs or deter systematic negligence. Drawing brief comparative insights, the article argues that effective governance requires clearer allocation of duties, enforceable standards of diligence for public authorities, and credible oversight capable of triggering corrective action before harm becomes irreversible. It proposes targeted reforms, notably codifying a “public duty of care,” strengthening coordination and transparency, widening access to remedies against manifest non-performance, and establishing an independent oversight function to reduce blame-shifting and improve compliance. To avoid conceptual overbreadth, the article distinguishes direct oil-and-gas environmental incidents from air-pollution and climate-related harms, using the latter only where they illuminate the common problem of omission-based public accountability. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_244690.html : Organizational performance is an important factor of the success of companies, organizations and businesses. Adapting an organizational model which fits appropriately with the context of an organization further increases the performance and in turn increases the success rate of that firm. Though there have been propositions for the adaption of certain universal frameworks, they aren't generally applicable to all organizations; the oil and gas industry, displaying unique organizational features requires a specific model to tend to its extreme conditions. This paper proposes customizing Weisbord's Six-Box Model (WSBM) in the context of the oil and gas industry, reviewing the unique organizational conditions of the oil and gas industry and the proper components required for an organizational model to measure the compatibility of the WSBM with the oil and gas industry. The findings depict a contextualized WSBM, the potential benefits of the WSBM and the challenges facing the adaption of the model into the oil and gas industry. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_244997.html In the context of the energy transition and increasingly stringent climate policies, understanding oil demand requires a product-specific perspective that goes beyond aggregate indicators. This study examines naphtha, a key feedstock linking the refining and petrochemical sectors, and analyzes the factors associated with its demand across ten major oil-consuming countries during 2000–2024. Using long-term panel data, naphtha prices are first modeled as a function of crude oil prices through an ARMA specification, after which a naphtha demand equation is estimated with cross-section fixed effects and a lagged dependent variable. The results indicate that naphtha demand is significantly associated with economic growth and downstream petrochemical product prices, especially olefins and aromatics. The positive and statistically significant lagged demand term suggests persistence and gradual adjustment in consumption, consistent with structural inertia in petrochemical feedstock use. Overall, the findings suggest that the energy transition may reshape the composition of oil demand rather than lead to a uniform decline across all petroleum products. The results provide policy-relevant insights for product-specific energy-transition strategies, refinery reconfiguration, and refinery–petrochemical integration, while underscoring that the estimated relationships should be interpreted as conditional associations rather than causal effects. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_245408.html The Strait of Hormuz, as one of the world’s most strategic energy chokepoints, plays a vital role in the maritime trade of crude oil and natural gas, and many Asian economies are heavily dependent on it. Following the onset of the 2026 tensions and conflicts, vessel traffic in the strait has sharply declined, with more than 95% of shipping flows disrupted. Daily vessel crossings have dropped from several per day to nearly zero, with only a few limited transits permitted under special authorization. The absence of effective alternative routes—especially for countries reliant on energy exports through this passage—has placed significant pressure on global markets and heightened concerns about the stability of supply. Under such circumstances, Asian markets, the primary destination for oil and gas passing through Hormuz, face the greatest vulnerability. If this situation persists, rising transportation costs and escalating geopolitical risks could seriously challenge the stability of the global energy market. The geopolitical importance of the strait means that any disruption extends far beyond the region, producing immediate consequences for energy and financial markets as well as national economies. For energy exporters, this results in reduced foreign‑exchange revenues, while energy importers face higher costs, inflationary pressures, and slower economic growth. Utilizing an analytical–descriptive approach and a multilayer scenario‑building framework https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_245513.html Iran’s oil refining industry, which serves as the backbone of the national economy and supplies over 95% of domestic transportation fuel requirements, is situated at the intersection of geopolitical challenges, global energy transition dynamics, and increasing environmental pressures. Adopting a foresight studies approach, this research identifies and analyzes the strategic drivers and uncertainties that will influence the design and development of Iran’s petroleum refineries through 2050. Utilizing a mixed-methods methodology encompassing a systematic literature review, analysis of international reports (OPEC, Shell, IEA), macro-level (PESTEL) and micro-level (Porter’s Five Forces) analyses, semi-structured expert interviews, and MICMAC (Matrix of Cross-Impact Multiplications Applied to a Classification) structural analysis, 34 key factors were extracted and ranked. The findings indicate that foreign policy, domestic governance, demographic trends, global energy transition, emerging technologies in the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors, environmental policies and regulations, and domestic consumption patterns are the eight principal drivers steering the system. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the confluence of environmental pressures (decarbonization, stringent environmental regulations), shifting demand patterns toward petrochemical products, and restricted access to advanced technologies owing to sanctions reinforces the strategic imperative to transform conventional refineries into integrated “petro-refinery” complexes. This study provides a dynamic roadmap for policymakers and industry leaders to enhance sectoral resilience, decarbonization, and global competitiveness through integrated petro-refineries, novel technologies, and smart governance while capitalizing on opportunities arising from the eastward shift of global energy gravity. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_246986.html The Islamic Republic of Iran has recently introduced the fourth generation of oil buyback contracts, known as the Iran Petroleum Contracts (IPC). The main objective of these new contracts is to attract foreign investment in the Iranian oil and gas sector. While the IPCs address certain risks associated with the Iranian Petroleum Buyback Contracts from the contractor's perspective, there are still additional concerns for contractors. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the risks associated with these contracts, this study takes a multi-faceted approach. Firstly, it provides an overview of upstream contracts in the oil industry. It then to identify and monitor all contractual and non-contractual risks linked to IPC contracts conducts a combination of qualitative methods (library and documentary research and Delphi method) and quantitative methods (interviews and questionnaires with 50 industry experts and companies involved in buyback, using techniques Fuzzy AHP, and Fuzzy TOPSIS). Through the use of these methods, the study aims to provide investors with valuable insights into the potential risks of the IPCs and assist NIOC in effectively responding to and monitoring these risks, thereby encouraging investment in the development of Iran's oil and gas projects. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_247511.html This article examines how capital market instruments, particularly Islamic bonds (sukuk), can finance Iran’s petrochemical value chain through a hybrid Rial–foreign-currency model. The study is motivated by post-sanctions capital-market constraints in Iran, notably currency volatility and limited access to foreign funding, and by a gap in research on multi-currency Islamic financing solutions. It proposes a multi-layer financing structure combining Rial and foreign-currency Ijārah sukuk tranches and applies doctrinal legal analysis to the relevant Sharīʿah contracts and Iranian regulatory framework. To make the quantitative claims transparent, a stylised five-year quarterly model of an export-oriented methanol project is used. Under the illustrative assumptions, the annual weighted average cost of sukuk debt falls from 30.24% in an all-Rial structure to 20.07% in a 50/50 hybrid structure, while mean DSCR increases from 1.28x to 1.45x and the share of periods below 1.0x falls from 37.5% to 25.2%. The hybrid structure may broaden the addressable investor base, but actual implementation remains conditional on sanctions compliance, foreign-exchange approvals, transferability of export proceeds, and settlement arrangements. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_251306.html This study investigates the nonlinear dependence between the daily logarithmic returns of global WTI crude oil prices and exchange rates in three major Asian oil-importing economies-China (CNY/USD), India (INR/USD), and Japan (JPY/USD) -over the period 2000–2024. A two-stage GARCHCopula framework is employed, in which the marginal distributions are modeled using a GARCH(1,1) model with a skewed Student's t distribution, followed by the estimation of Gaussian, Student's t, Frank, Plackett, Clayton, and Gumbel copulas to characterize the dependence structure. Results indicate that the oil price–exchange rate relationship is nonlinear in all three countries, although its strength and pattern differ substantially across economies.The Gumbel copula provides the best fit for India, indicating asymmetric dependence with pronounced upper-tail dependence, whereas the Student's t copula is selected for both Japan and China, revealing symmetric tail dependence. However, the dependence in China is considerably weaker than that observed in India and Japan, suggesting a more limited transmission of oil price shocks to its foreign exchange market. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the transmission of oil price shocks is heterogeneous across the three economies, with the observed differences being broadly consistent with country-specific structural characteristics, including energy import dependence and exchange rate regimes.From a policy perspective, the results suggest that India should strengthen oil price risk hedging and exchange rate risk management, while Japan and China should continue to monitor tail risks and maintaining exchange rate stability during periods of market stress. These findings Highlight nonlinear and tail dependence in oil–exchange rate dynamics. https://pbr.put.ac.ir/article_252317.html Oil and gas investment disputes often arise from corporate structures built around special purpose vehicles, joint ventures, project finance, and layered ownership chains. When a host state terminates a concession, revokes a license, alters fiscal terms, or intervenes in regulation, the immediate legal injury is usually suffered by the locally incorporated project company. Yet the same injury is transmitted economically to foreign shareholders through diminished share value and lost dividends. This phenomenon, known as reflective loss, places investor–State arbitration between two legal logics. Methodologically, the study adopts a doctrinal and case-law-based approach, interpreting treaty text and leading arbitral awards together with corporate-law rationales and sector-specific investment structures. Corporate law normally treats the company as the proper claimant for harm to corporate assets, while investment treaty law frequently protects shares as investments and permits shareholders to bring claims in their own name. The resulting tension is especially acute in the hydrocarbon sector, where the same project may generate contractual claims by the operating company, treaty claims by direct and indirect shareholders, and parallel proceedings by consortium participants. This article argues that reflective loss should not be treated as a simple jurisdictional defect. Instead, it should be managed as a system design problem through a structured approach that characterizes the loss, controls procedural multiplicity, and disciplines remedies. The proposed framework seeks to preserve treaty protection while preventing double recovery and incoherent awards in oil and gas arbitration.