Mirhossein Zamaninia said Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan will visit Tehran on April 9-10 and discuss three key points including development rights for Iran’s Farzad B gas field, purchasing oil from the Islamic Republic and investment in petrochemical industries.
He maintained that talks on India’s investment in Farzad B gas field, which has been delayed and ultimately relinquished under pressure from the US, will be ‘a little time-consuming’, adding Pars Oil & Gas Company will take part in the negotiations.
A consortium headed by India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) Videsh, the overseas exploration unit of Oil and Natural Gas Corp, discovered the Farzad B gas field in the Farsi offshore block in 2008, but was unable to get permission to develop it due to Western sanctions against Iran.
Zamaninia also affirmed that Central Bank of Iran is currently engaged in talks with Indian companies on debt payment. He added an Indian company is currently working on studies on importing Iranian gas via sea.
Last December, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) said Tehran and New Delhi are seriously negotiating construction of a trans Oman Sea-Indian Ocean pipeline to transfer gas to India. According to Ali Reza Kameli, the 4.5-billion pipeline is set to pump 31.5 mcm of Iran’s gas to India’s western Gurjarat port.
Ali Akbar Shabanpour, Director General of Pars Oil & Gas Company, said an agreement that was signed with India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) for exploration and development of Farzad B gas field was a buyback oil contract but there is the possibility that it could be implemented as an IPC (Iran Petroleum Contract).
“At the moment, technical and field negotiations on Farzad B is underway between Pars Oil & Gas Company and ONGC, and National Petroleum Investment Company is following up on the project’s economic aspects,” he said.
India is Iran's second-biggest oil client after China.
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