Petroleum Business Review (PBR)

In recent years, the completion of the value chain and increased exportation of petrochemical products have been utilized to offset oil and gas export losses. As a result, this may have created various challenges and complexities within the oil and gas industry. The study aims to identify key challenges confronting Iran's petrochemical industry, with a particular focus on regulatory issues. It seeks to distinguish and prioritize the most critical regulatory factors necessary for establishing an effective regulatory framework in the petrochemical sector. For this study, data was collected through several interviews and questionnaire with Iran's petrochemical experts. With the collected data, the Delphi method was utilized to help identify the most critical challenges. The impact and significance of each challenge were determined through statistical analysis. The research findings indicate that the most important challenges are the weakness of laws to attract foreign and domestic investors, the lack of trust and lack of integration in this industry from upstream to downstream sector, respectively. Also, based on the research results, it show that it is essential for Iran's petrochemical industry to have two regulatory agencies. The "Competition Council" and the "Securities and Exchange High Council" as regulators of the physical and financial markets are considered, however, for them to regulate effectively the overall structure of these councils must first be dramatically reformed. The important effective regulating factors which should be emphasized by the regulator in Iran's petrochemical industry were indicated and ranked as allocation, responsiveness, financial independence, legal independence and political independence.

The United States’ foreign policy is influenced by specific theoretical logics that also shape its energy policies. These logics play a crucial role in understanding the country's approach to energy strategies. In this article, the authors analyze the alignment between the energy policies of the Trump and Biden administrations and the broader theoretical underpinnings of American international policy. The authors contend that the theoretical logics that drive US foreign policy has significant implications beyond foreign policy, affecting various domains, including energy. In this context, the article seeks to answer the main question, "What theoretical frameworks have shaped the energy policy of the United States from 2017-2023, during the Trump and Biden administrations?" It contends that Donald Trump’s energy policy was driven by a quest for hegemony predicated on the logic of supremacy. Conversely, Joe Biden’s energy policy embraced a multilateral orientation based on liberal internationalism and integrated environmental and climate concerns with America’s economic aspirations. The article is structured as follows: the introduction sets the context for the analysis, while the literature review examines the relevant theoretical literature. The conceptual framework section outlines the authors' theoretical approach. The subsequent sections analyze the energy policies of the Trump and Biden administrations, respectively. The authors then identify points of continuity between the two administrations before concluding.

Dynamic capabilities refer to an organization's capacity to purposefully create, expand, or change its resource base. In all countries of the world, the gas industry of each country plays an important role in its economy and growth. And we are in an era where rapid global changes and technological innovations occur, and gas refineries are not unaffected by these changes. The objective of this research is to identify dynamic capabilities within knowledge-based companies in the gas refining industry. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to develop a model of dynamic capabilities specific to knowledge-based gas refining enterprises. By analyzing 54 articles through a meta-synthesis method and conducting semi-structured interviews with 12 experts in this field, the components of dynamic capabilities were identified through thematic analysis. Following this, the factors were evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis, and a questionnaire was distributed to specialists, with all components being validated in the initial phase. To develop the final model, the research utilized structural interpretive modeling (ISM), and the corresponding questionnaire was completed by 15 managers of knowledge-based companies in Tehran

The economic evaluation of oil and gas projects aims to provide decision-makers with a comprehensive estimate of costs and benefits. This study examines the impact of macroeconomic variables, such as interest and inflation rates, on the economic assessment of drilling several gas wells in northeastern Iran. The theoretical framework includes Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), and Payback Period (PP). The importance of accurately predicting these variables for economic decision-making by managers and policymakers is clearly established, with their analysis playing a key role in project evaluation. In this study, the planning of activities and analysis of the construction and operational phases of the project were first conducted. The inflation rate was forecasted using the ARIMA model, and an appropriate discount rate was determined. The pricing of gas and condensates, fixed and variable costs, and project revenues were also reviewed. The economic evaluation was performed using COMFAR software, with a sensitivity analysis to examine the impact of changes in key assumptions. The results indicate positive financial metrics for the project under different production rates, discount rates, inflation rates, and various energy prices, confirming the project's economic viability.

Energy is a strategic commodity and ensuring its stable supply is considered an important issue for governments. Oil and gas, as the two main sources of energy, have played a serious role in the world's energy supply in the last century, and statistics show that these sources, especially gas, will continue to play a serious role in the world economy in the next few decades (History). Meanwhile, general energy policies can be examined as one of the extracts of Imam Khamenei's political-economic thought and the challenges and opportunities (issue). The main question of the article is: What is the place of general energy policies in the political-economic thought of Imam Khamenei and why did some address it? For this purpose, descriptive-analytical method and reference to related documents have been used (method). The result is that from this point of view, Imam Khamenei was able to intelligently guide different managers and governments towards using the general policies in order to manage and rebuild the country's economy in a way that is not influenced by foreign impulses. However, in this framework, the country has also faced some problems (result).

This study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the energy supply chain in the petrochemi-cal industry with the approach of Malmquist cost efficiency index and fuzzy VIKOR, taking into account the importance coefficient of input variables. After reviewing the literature, first the inputs and outputs of the energy supply chain were identified. Then, the influential variables in the petrochemical industry in the energy supply chain were identified and prioritized with the fuzzy VIKOR approach. Then the weight of the input variables was calculated with the geomet-ric mean and the input variables were entered into the mathematical model based on their weight. Based on input type, a mathematical model was written to estimate input costs to ensure output and supply chain efficiency in two consecutive years. Then the Malmquist cost index was estimated based on the model outputs. The petrochemical company with the highest Malmquist total cost index and the lowest output cost was selected as the optimal solution of the model. The value of the objective function indicates the input costs. Our inputs include two variables, the number of employees, the value of materials used in fuel reproduction. Petro-chemicals 9, 7, 12, 10, 6, 5, 3, 4, 13, 11, 2, 8, 1 and 14 respectively have the lowest input costs, but it is necessarily due to efficiency that petrochemicals and the efficiency of petrochemicals is checked. The cost return is calculated from the relevant formula in the years 2021 and 2022.