Not long ago it was hospitable to foreigners: As oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, an ally of powerful former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in the late 1990s pushed through billions of dollars in agreements with Shell, France's Total, Italy's Eni, Schlumberger and Halliburton to develop large and technically challenging projects, such as Iran's huge South Pars field, which is believed to hold 7% of the world's natural gas supply.
Not too long ago it was hospitable to foreigners: As oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, an ally of powerful former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in the late 1990s pushed through billions of dollars in agreements with Shell, France's Total, Italy's Eni, Schlumberger and Halliburton to develop large and technically challenging projects, such as Iran's huge South Pars field, which is believed to hold 7% of the world's natural gas supply.