By a unanimous vote, Iran's Senate last week ratified an oil pact that was a major break in the traditional fifty-fifty profit split that Middle Eastern governments give foreign prospectors. To Italy's state-run ENI and its ambitious boss. Enrico Mattei, Iran granted twelve-year drilling concessions for a strip on the Gulf of Oman, a submerged area off Abadan, and a promising 6,800-sq.-mi. area south of the fabulous Qum find (TIME, May 6). But to Iran ENI gave up to 75% of the profits from any oil find it may make.
Though Iran still claims that "the principle of sharing profits fifty-fifty between...
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