Will $87 billion in lost rig money be returned to Iran?

According to an exclusive report by Energy Press, the Fortuna oil rig, or the missing oil rig, was a contract to purchase an oil drilling rig during the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration that was revealed by the famous Bijan Zanganeh in 2015. The purchase of this rig came at a time when Iran was under severe sanctions.

In addition, the Offshore Installations Company was also among the companies on the sanctions list. These factors had imposed difficult conditions on Iran’s commercial and oil transactions, including the aforementioned company. The story of the missing oil rig (Fortuna rig) is that during the first sanctions period at the end of the 10th administration, Iranian companies faced difficulties in purchasing oil rigs due to sanctions issues. One of these companies was the Offshore Installations Company, which happened to have won one of the tenders for Phase 14 of South Pars at that time and needed to purchase a rig to fulfill its obligations. The series of corruptions that occurred during the purchase of this rig required by the Offshore Installations Company led to the creation of a case titled “The Missing Rig” in the media space. The entire transaction price of the Offshore Installations oil rig (the famous missing rig), which is equivalent to $87 million, was paid by the Offshore Installations Company, managed by Ali Taheri Motlagh. Interestingly, despite the failure to deliver the oil rig to the offshore facilities, Ali Taheri Motlagh, the then CEO of the company, signed the oil rig delivery form at the time of the contract, even though the rig had never entered Iran or Iranian territorial waters.
Now, let’s move on to the other side of the corruption in this case, namely Agha Morad Shirani. Agha Morad Shirani has indicated in the hearing of the High Court of Commercial and Financial Justice in the UK that Deen Company was the broker in this contract and announced that, in accordance with Ali Taheri’s request, he had evaluated the price of the rig. According to the court, the reason for the unrealistic price of the rig (regardless of the failure to deliver) is Agha Morad Shirani’s unrealistic evaluation. As the oil site narrated, the offshore facilities company had won one of the Phase 14 South Pars tenders and in order to be able to fulfill the obligations arising from this contract in the best possible way, it was forced to purchase the rig.
An expert team was assigned to find an oil rig that suited the needs of the offshore facilities company. Finally, a broker company introduces a rig to the managers of the offshore facilities, and upon approval by the offshore facilities, the purchase of the rig is carried out. The money for the rig is deposited into the company’s account, but the broker company withdraws the money and disappears. Reza Mostafavi Tabatabaei, one of the main defendants in the case, fled Iran a few years ago and settled in England, but two other defendants are present in Iran. Tabatabaei denied all charges against him and considered the other people involved in the transaction to be the only defendants in the case. He rejected the possibility of a verdict being issued against him in a British court and emphasized that even if issued, this verdict would not be enforceable. Domestic investigation into the missing rig case The Fortuna oil rig was purchased during the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration, but despite paying the full amount, it never entered Iran. Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, the Minister of Oil of the 11th government, first announced the news of the missing oil rig, and after that, the oil rig case was filed in the judiciary. The case of the missing rig was also being processed domestically after it was raised in 2015, and finally led to the issuance of a preliminary verdict in March 2018. Alizadeh Tabatabaei, the lawyer for one of the defendants, said about this verdict: “We expected the court to change the charge from breach of trust to embezzlement, but this did not happen and the defendants were tried on the basis of the charge of breach of trust, which unfortunately does not have any penalty other than two years in prison if the court finds them guilty.”