Sukuk Salam Applications in
Oil Producing Industry
Majid Pireh
Islamic Finance Expert
Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO)
May 2012
Oil Industry
At A Glance
•
Oil industry, for the time being, is the world’s most essential
and powerful industry whose ever sky-rising monetary
circulation in the world’s markets shocks every insider.
Reaching oil resources has been the cause of many wars,
coups, and massacres over a century.
•
It has undoubtedly had a key role for superpowers in
determining the world’s political borders after the first and
the second World Wars. World’s nations are now of three
types: “oil-rich exporters,” “oil consumers and buyers,” and
“oil-rich consumers.”
Iranian oil industry
at a glance
• Iranian oil industry began a
hundred years ago, when oil was
discovered in Masjed Soleiman
for the first time, and it has
survived and developed since
then.
Iranian oil industry
at a glance
• Since 1951, National Iranian Oil Company
(NIOC) has been directing and making policies
for exploration, drilling, production, research and
development, refining, distribution and export of
oil, gas, petroleum products.
• NIOC, with a vast amount of oil and gas
resources, is one of the world’s largest oil
companies.
• Having 10% and 18% of the world's oil and gas
reserves respectively, Iran was the OPEC's
second largest oil producer in the Iranian year
(ending late March 2008). The country also
enjoys an outstanding status in meeting the
world's energy demands with a production
capacity of over 4 million barrels of crude oil per
day.
Wednesday 3/14/2012
•
In a three hour visit to the Research Institute of the Petroleum
Industry (RIPI), Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution,
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei stressed on necessity of changing
the current view on oil industry as a source of revenue and
providing income for annual budget.
•
Supreme Leader described spending oil revenues for handling daily
economic issues unwise adding oil revenues as a heritage and
treasury should be a durable asset and a strong backing for the
country.
•
Supreme Leader called setting up the National Development Fund
an important initiative adding under the five year development plan,
at least 20 percent of the oil revenues should by deposited in the
fund for promotion of production and bolstering industrial sector,
a positive move that has been started and should be continued.
Friday 2/3/2012
South Pars Sukuk with 20 percent profit on sale
•
Around $735 million in Sukuk will be issued as of February 4 at the Tejarat Bank’s
branches nationwide to finance the South Pars gas field’s development projects, the
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) managing director announced.
•
The Sukuk will be offered with 20 percent annual profit for a period of four years to
attract the public participation.
•
According to Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi, Iran will also issue $15 billion in Sukuk in
the current year to be invested in the domestic oil industry.
What is Sukuk Salam?
Salam contract:
Purchase of a commodity for deferred delivery in exchange for immediate payment
according to specified conditions or sale of a commodity for deferred delivery in
exchange for immediate payment. (www.aaoifi.com)
In its simplest form, a salam contract involves the purchase of assets by one party from
another party on immediate payment and deferred delivery terms. The purchase price
of the assets is typically referred to as the salam capital and is paid at the time of
entering into the salam contract. The assets sold under the salam contract are referred
to as al-muslam fhi, delivery of which is deferred until a future date.
What is Sukuk Salam? (Con ‘d)
Salam sukuk are certificates of equal value issued for the purpose of mobilizing
Salam capital so that the goods to be delivered on the basis of Salam come to
the ownership of the certificate holders.
The issuer of the certificates is a seller of the goods of Salam, the subscribers are
the buyers of the goods, while the funds realized from subscription are the
purchase price (Salam capital) of the goods.
The holders of Salam certificates are the owners of the Salam goods and are
entitled to the sale price of the certificates or the sale price of the Salam
goods sold through a parallel Salam, if any.
Salam contract / Salam Sukuk
All standard Shariah requirements that apply to
Salam also apply to Salam Sukuk, such as, full
payment by the buyer at the time of effecting
the sale, standardized nature of underlying asset,
clear enumeration of quantity, quality, date and
place of delivery of the asset and the like.
Liquidity of the Market
• One of the Shariah conditions relating to Salam, as well as for
creation of Sukuk Salam, is the requirement that the
purchased goods are not re-sold before maturity.
• This constraint renders the Salam instrument illiquid and
hence somewhat less attractive to investors.
• Thus, an investor will buy a Salam certificate if he expects
prices of the underlying commodity to be higher on the
maturity date.
Sukuk Salam Applications
in Financing Oil Industry
• Salam Sukuk are certificates that shows Sukukholders are joint
owners of specified barrels of oil which are purchased on the
basis of Salam contract.
• The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) is the seller and
will deliver the oil at maturity.
• The Sukuk are not tradable before maturity.
• The Salam capital should be paid in cash at the beginning.
Some scenarios at maturity
At maturity, the oil price may be more/less than expected price.
Is there any way to solve this matter?
Option contact may be a solution!
Option contract
• The right, but not the obligation, to buy (for a call option) or sell
(for a put option) a specific amount of a given commodity at a
specified price (the strike price) during a specified period of
time.
• Each option contract has a buyer, called the holder, and a seller,
known as the writer.
• If the option contract is exercised, the writer is responsible for
fulfilling the terms of the contract by delivering the shares to the
appropriate party.
Option contract (Con ‘d)
• In the case of a security that cannot be delivered
such as an index, the contract is settled in cash.
• For the holder, the potential loss is limited to the
price paid to acquire the option.
• When an option is not exercised, it expires.
Options contract from
Shariah Board Viewpoint
• Option contract is a kind of commitment. In this
contract, the option writer has the commitment to
sell/buy the asset depending on what its buyer desires.
• According to the nature of the option contract, which is a
new and independent contract, it can be a correct and
permissible contract if all general provisions of the
contracts are fully observed.
• Shariah-compatible option contract is structured only for
those assts that could be really delivered. For this, some
assets such as indexes or temperatures could not be
considered as underlying assets for a Shariah-compatible
option contract.
Options contract from
Shariah Board Viewpoint
• Enacting of executive bylaws and guidelines
should be carried out with a particular concern
about preventing superficial and irregular
transactions which causes such transactions be
cancelled.
• Shariah Board of SEO also emphasized that
value of options market should follow a rational
ratio to real assets available in the real economy.
Some scenarios at maturity
• Suppose that the investors expect the oil price to
be between 100 USD to 120 USD.
• If at maturity oil price is at that range, the
investors shall receive the barrels of oil
physically.
How about some prices less/more
than the expected range?
Some scenarios at maturity
Use of options contract
Less than 100 USD
Sukukholders shall
exercise their put
option at 100 USD
Less than 120 USD
The National Iranian
Oil Company shall
exercise its call
option at 120 USD
If the price is
Trading Sukuk Salam
• As mentioned, Salam purchasers are not
permitted to trade the commodity before
maturity.
• Sukukholders may enter a separate Salam
contract to sell some amount of commodity
which is equal to what is purchased at the first
Salam sale.
• The two contracts should be independent.
• This model is known as parallel Salam.
Thank you for your kind attention