Dr. Seyed Masoud Hashemian Esfahani

Dr. Seyed Masoud Hashemian Esfahani served as the Acting Deputy for International and Trade Affairs and simultaneously Director General for Economics & Investment Affairs at the Petroleum Ministry of IRAN for a combined period of 13 years. Prior to that, he was Director General for Strategic Planning at the Planning Deputy Department of the Petroleum Ministry of IRAN for a period of five years. He recently retired from the government after a long period of national service. He managed and oversaw issues relating to strategic planning for the petroleum industry of IRAN for some two-decades. Dr Hashemian has a very sound knowledge of energy, geopolitics and the oil and gas trade, particularly in the Caspian and wider-Eurasian geography.

Further, in his capacity as a senior researcher, Dr Hashemian worked for the International Energy Research Institute and during that period of his career, amongst his many other achievements, he translated the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and its additional texts and appendices, into the Persian language. He was closely involved in the negotiations on the International Energy Charter political declaration, serving as a key negotiator and representative for the government of Iran during 2013-15. He remained closely connected to the Energy Charter Process after the time when Iran signed the declaration in 2016 and thus became an observer to the Energy Charter Conference.

Dr Hashemian was also Chair of the National Committee for Energy, Mines and the Environment of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) for a period of 13 years. He founded the ECO Oil and Gas Training Center in Tehran. ECO is an international organization founded by Iran, Turkey and Pakistan, and further comprised of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Dr Hashemian helped to initiate relations between the International Energy Charter and some of the ECO member countries, and generally helped to bolster relations between the two organizations. Furthermore, he has often represented Iran as Head of Delegation by virtue of his expertise in energy geopolitics at scores of international conferences, public and working group events.

Dr Hashemian holds an MA in the field of international Economics from Esfahan University and a PhD in the field of strategic management from the Supreme National Defence University (SNDU). In parallel to his government service, he gave lectures to Doctoral students at Tehran University and the SNDU, a set of activity in which he continues at the present time. He is member of UNCTAD World Investment Committee from 2002 and was the IRANIAN representative at The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in 2009.