It's seven years

Lives in Brief | Times Online Obituary: "Bagher Mostofi, managing director of the Iran Petrochemical Company, 1964-79, was born in Tehran on March 27, 1918. He died in London on December 14, 2002, aged 84.

Bagher Mostofi played an important role in the development, and eventually the nationalisation in the mid-1950s, of the Iranian oil industry. Having studied with a scholarship from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company at Imperial College, London, he was appointed a director of the newly established Iran Oil Company in 1947, responsible for exploration and drilling for oil. He was appointed managing director in 1953, and soon afterwards the company made a major strike in the Alborz-Sarajeh area, south of Tehran.

When the industry was nationalised Mostofi was appointed to be a director of the National Iranian Oil Company. He took over as the managing director of its subsiduary, Iran Petrochemical Company, in 1964. His knowledge of the Iranian oil industry and his tireless efforts to preserve and promote the country’s natural resources were among his most valuable contributions.

Mostofi came from a long line of court accountants and scribes, well educated and reared in Persian literature. After schooling in Tehran he read petroleum engineering at the University of Birmingham, where he was the first foreign student to win the Cadman medal.

When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, Mostofi was in Europe for medical reasons. He decided to stay in the West, settling in London and acting as adviser to a number of companies."