IRAQ - Sayyed Mehdi Hosseini.

Known as "Mr. Buy-back" because he pioneered this approach in the early 1990s, Hosseini now is a deputy CEO of NIOC in charge of fields' development as well as the buy-back deals of Pedec and Pars Oil & Gas Co. (POGC). He returned to Tehran for this job in September 2002.

Under Hosseini, the CEO of Pedec is Abolhassan Khamoushi who in late 2001 took over this post from Dr. Mir-Moezzi. A key Pedec director, Ali Akbar Wahidi Ale-Agha, is a tough negotiator of the BBC. (Born in 1945, Ale-Agha graduated in petroleum engineering from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1969. He joined NIOC in late 1969 and has since worked in all phases of petroleum engineering. He was a co-ordinator of oil cases before the Iran-US Claims Tribunal and has worked as a senior alanyst at the OPEC secretariat).

From August 2000 to September 2002, Hosseini headed Kala Naft UK, NIOC's London-based procurement arm. In that position he replaced Ardeshir Fathinejad, who then was transferred to head Kala's office in Calgary, Canada.

Previously, Hosseini was deputy oil minister for international upstream affairs in charge of NIOC's BBC negotiations with foreign companies. Hosseini was a key man in this sector for years. He lost this position in 1996 to then deputy oil minister Dr. Mohammad Hadi Nejad Hosseinian and in May 1997 he was made head of the National Petrochemical Co. (NPC) with the rank of deputy oil minister. But Zanganeh brought Hosseini back as an advisor on international upstream affairs in August. 1997 and gave the top NPC post to Mohammad Nematzadeh (see below). Hosseini was made deputy oil minister for international affairs again in April 1998 and became in charge of BBCs.