Analysis of Gas Sales Receivables in the National Iranian Gas Company: An Emphasis on the Optimization of Receivables Liquidation Methods

Designing incentive mechanisms for increasing the speed of liquidity of receivables is one of the leading options for streamlining domestic resources in the field of oil and gas financing. The main objective of this research is to investigate and optimize the liquidity methods for gas sales receivables in line with the requirements of the National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC). After a deep review of literature, we extract methods and legal platforms for receivables liquidation methods. The current research is an applied and descriptive-analytical research respectively in terms of its purpose and methodology. The data analysis is a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and the data required for this study, including the amounts and duration of deferred receivables by different categories of the subscribers of NIGC during 2012 to 2018. Subsequently, in order to visualize the data in the form of heat tables, Microsoft's Business Intelligence software is utilized to understand the process of the creation and settlement of receivables, to cluster receivables by the different categories of subscription, and, finally, to reveal the subscriber behavior patterns in disbursements. Finally, using theoretical foundations and experts’ opinions, a set of optimal methods has been recommended to accelerate the process of collecting current receivables, depending on the behavior of different groups of subscribers. Based on the results of the interviews, NIGC should apply information technology (IT)-based methods, incentive policies, and deterrent (punitive) strategies to accelerate the liquidation of receivables in household and commercial subscription. The empirical findings of the research on the behavior of industrial and power plant subscribers are different, and the main methods used in this section are receivablebased financing arrangements such as debt discounting, factoring, as well as offset contracting. We provide some policy implications in this context.