IRNA - Profile - Mehdi Hashemi.

Mehdi Hashemi, the second ex-president Rafsanjani's three sons, remains an influential young man with strong connections in NIOC, NIGC, NPC, etc. He is the CEO of Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Co. (IOEC), a 1993- created JV owned 51% by NIOC and 49% by the ministry of heavy industry's arm Idro. IOEC has worked on the $900m first phase of the huge South Pars gas/condensate field and on three oilfields. It has been bidding to develop several other oilfields on BBC basis, in the hope that it would have an oil trading division and IOEC would eventually become an empire. By early 1997 it had contracts in Iran worth almost $1.5 bn.

In a coup resented by the US, in May 1997 IOEC took a 10% stake in Azerbaijan's offshore Lenkoran-Talyush Deniz field operated by Elf. The other partners in this field are Total, Agip, Deminex and Baku's Socar.

In another coup in June 1997, then oil minister Aghazadeh appointed Hashemi as CEO of NIOC unit Petroleum Development & Engineering Co. (Pedec), and made Mostafa Khoee (then the CEO) its chairman. The move was to strengthen Hashemi's position in the South Pars project as IOEC was blamed for long delays in developing the first phase. But in late 1998 NIOC gave the first phase to the new Pars Oil & Gas Co. and Khoee moved out to head PetroIran (see OMT). That was a major setback for Hashemi. Now there is talk of plans, first proposed after Khatami was elected president in May 1997, to merge IOEC and Pedec - with NIOC to buy Idro's 49% holding in IOEC. Apart from its Tehran offices, IOEC has procurement units in Dubai, Singapore, London and Ottawa. It has its own a fabrication yard at Bandar Abbas. But IOEC subcontracts most work and relies on local staff.

IOEC wants to act as a contractor in a 2m b/d crude oil pipeline and storage facilities at the proposed Trans-Malay project near the Strait of Malacca, in which NIOC might become one of the partners. This project, promoted by Chiyoda Corp. of Japan and a Malaysian firm, would include two terminals and two major oil refineries on either side of the Malay Peninsula. It will enable tankers to bypass the Straits of Malacca.

Rafsanjani, now head of the powerful Expediency Council (see Gas Market Trends) and his son Mehdi have promoted proposals for two gas pipelines to Turkey, one starting from Iran which was to be completed in late 1998, and a bigger one starting from Turkmenistan - a portion of which was completed in December 1997. Vetoed by the US, these pipelines were to supply Turkey and Europe with Iranian and Turkmen gas. But the pipeline section from Turkmenistan to northern Iran is in operation, now supplying the northern provinces with Turkmen gas (see Gas Market Trends 15). Rafsanjani and his son have also been behind oil swap deals between Tehran and the Central Asian republics.

The 'Times' of London on Feb. 24, 1994 claimed in a report that Mehdi had several agencies representing big foreign companies in Iran. The paper mentioned Snam of the ENI Group (Italy) and Daewoo (S. Korea) among the companies Mehdi represented. It then quoted "an Iranian businessman in Damascus as saying: "Mehdi represents everything and anything that makes money in Iran". The paper also claimed: "Iraqi companies run Uday Hussein, the eldest son of President Saddam Hussein, sell 20,000 to 30,000 barrels of refined oil products a day to companies (in Iran) controlled by Mehdi

Rafsanjani... The Iraqi companies also send Iran petrochemicals, fertilisers, cement, leather goods and dates".