Bloomberg reports that “the world is awash in crude, but big oil companies are lining up to develop new fields in Iran even as they slash spending and abandon exploration elsewhere. One thing explains this paradox: cost.”  

“The Middle Eastern country is one of the cheapest places in the world to tap new oil fields and pump from existing wells. The slump in crude prices makes Iran even more attractive to investors, assuming its nuclear deal with world powers leads to an easing of sanctions, said the International Energy Agency.”  

“’Costs are low because they have giant fields which produce economies of scale, the terrain is mostly straightforward and reservoirs are highly prolific,’ Robin Mills, a Dubai-based analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting, said by e-mail. If prices stay low, production costs could drop even further in Iran and its neighbor Iraq, he said.”