Pezeshkian accepts Paknejad's resignation and names Bovard acting oil minister

President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted the resignation of Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad and appointed Hamid Bovard acting minister, the oil ministry's Shana service reported on Monday. The decree cites Article 135 of the constitution. Paknejad had held the post since the Majlis confirmed him on 21 August 2024, 31 Mordad 1403, by 222 votes. Bovard has been deputy oil minister and chief executive of the National Iranian Oil Company since September 2024.

The National, citing officials, said Paknejad had submitted the resignation some time ago for personal reasons and had insisted on leaving. The presidency accepted it on Sunday. Bovard, 62 in that account and born in 1343 in the Iranian calendar, which is 1964 or 1965, stays in place while the government chooses a permanent minister. An acting minister under Article 135 can run the department. He cannot sit as a full cabinet member until the Majlis votes.

Who Bovard is

Shana listed a career inside the state oil companies rather than in politics. Bovard has been chief executive of Maroun Oil and Gas Production Company, of the National Iranian South Oil Company, of Iranian Oil Exploration Operations Company, and of Iranian Offshore Oil Company. Pezeshkian named him NIOC chief in Shahrivar 1403. At a council of deputies on Monday, Bovard thanked Paknejad for two years of work and said production and development programmes would continue under the 14th government's slogan of consensus. He did not give a new export figure.

The market he inherits

Bovard takes the ministry while a US naval blockade has squeezed Iranian crude shipments. The National reported that the country's central bank chief had earlier said exports had plunged to zero under that pressure. Paknejad, before he left, said revenue from oil already sold was still reaching Iran. Those two sentences do not contradict each other. A halt to new liftings can sit beside payments for cargoes that loaded months ago. Neither figure has been matched to a tanker-tracking table in the official decree.

Fuel shortages inside Iran have run alongside the export squeeze. The war with the United States and limits on Iranian shipping have made it harder to move crude and to collect payment. The acting minister's immediate job is operational: keep fields producing, keep refineries supplied, and decide which cargoes can still sail. The political job, a name for the Majlis to confirm, belongs to Pezeshkian.

What the decree does not say

The presidential text praises Bovard's record and asks for success. It does not mention the blockade, the war, or a production target. The 222-vote confirmation of Paknejad in August 2024 is the benchmark for the next nominee. A weaker vote would signal that the Majlis wants a different oil policy. A similar vote would ratify continuity under a man who already runs NIOC. Until that vote, the person signing oil-ministry papers is the NIOC chief, in an acting rank, under an article written for vacancies.

Article 135 is the vacancy clause. It lets the president name an acting minister for up to three months while a nominee is sent to parliament. The clock on Bovard, if the decree is read that way, runs from Sunday's acceptance. A permanent name has to reach the Majlis inside that window or the acting arrangement has to be renewed. Bovard's own companies, South Oil and Offshore, are the production units that would feel a change in export permission first. He already runs them through NIOC. The resignation moves the same man one seat higher without changing the operating chart, until parliament says otherwise.