National Iranian Oil Company

The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) (Persian: شرکت ملّی نفت ایران‎‎ Sherkat-e Melli-ye Naft-e Īrān), a government-owned corporation under the direction of the Ministry of Petroleum of Iran, is an oil and natural gas producer and distributor headquartered in Tehran. It was established in 1948. NIOC ranks as the world's third largest oil company, after Saudi Arabia's state-owned Aramco and Russia's Gazprom.

The NIOC is exclusively responsible for the exploration, extraction, transportation and exportation of crude oil, as well as sales of natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Having provided the domestic refineries and manufacturing plants with crude oil required for the petroleum products, the NIOC exports its surplus production according to commercial considerations in the framework of the quotas determined by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and at the prices prevalent in the international markets. The NIOC also signs some long term contracts on "buy-back" basis with foreign companies in order to exploit national oil fields and export its products. The NIOC exports natural gas and liquefied natural gas via the "National Iranian Gas Export Company".