Iran's oil minister quits, replaced in shock announcement

Iran has named the head of its state oil company, Hamid Bovard, acting oil minister after Mohsen Paknejad resigned, Khabar Online reported on October 4.

Bovard has spent most of his career in oilfield operations. The appointment is temporary, and President Masoud Pezeshkian can put Bovard or another candidate to parliament for a confidence vote. The change comes during the war with the US, with oil exports central to the economy: Paknejad said in April that the US blockade was failing to curb oil exports, and the US Treasury sanctioned the state oil company's chief executive in February 2025.

Paknejad joined the cabinet in August 2024, when parliament approved all of Pezeshkian's ministerial nominees. He won 222 of 288 votes cast, Khabar Online said. Presidential communications official Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabai said Paknejad had resigned earlier "for personal reasons", and that Pezeshkian had not accepted it at the time.

Some Iranian media have pointed to a dispute between the ministry and the Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company as a possible factor. The report said this has not been officially confirmed.

The Iranian Journalists Club wrote that controversy over oil sales and the cancellation of a contract to sell oil to seven Chinese refineries had overtaken Paknejad's lobbying. It asked what would happen to 80mn barrels of oil whose fate it called unclear. Neither claim has been confirmed.

Bovard, from Shushtar in Khuzestan province, studied mechanical engineering at the Petroleum University of Technology and holds a master's in executive management from Islamic Azad University.

He has run the Maroun oil and gas production company, the Iranian Oil Exploration Operations Company and the National Iranian South Oilfields Company, which he led from 2012 to 2014.

Paknejad appointed him chief executive of the National Iranian Oil Company in August 2024, replacing Mohsen Khojastehmehr. Paknejad, a former deputy oil minister for hydrocarbon resources, spent most of his career in the oil ministry and the state oil company before taking the top job.

Pezeshkian has not said whether he will nominate Bovard or another candidate for the permanent post.