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Iran pursues participation in joint field with Kuwait

Iran Materials 19 July 2012 12:19 (UTC +04:00)
Iran is prepared to cooperate with Kuwait in the development of Arash gas field, which is shared by the two countries in the Persian Gulf, the managing director of Iranian Offshore Oil Company said.
Iran pursues participation in joint field with Kuwait

Azerbaijan, Baku, Jul.18/ Trend F.Milad/

Iran is prepared to cooperate with Kuwait in the development of Arash gas field, which is shared by the two countries in the Persian Gulf, the managing director of Iranian Offshore Oil Company said.

"Iran pursues the policy of participation instead of unitization toward developing Arash gas field," Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh told the Shana News Agency on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Zirakchianzadeh told the Fars News Agency on Monday that Iran's PetroIran Company will start developing Arash gas field as Kuwait has not yet responded to Iran's offer of joint development since 12 years ago.

Talks with PetroIran are being finalized to invest $2 billion in the project, he said.

Iran announced in January that it would launch full-scale unilateral development of the offshore Arash gas field if Kuwait does not respond to its offer of joint development.

"Our emphasis presently is on joint partnership strategy rather than competition, and we are hopeful to reach a conclusion with Kuwait over the development of the shared Arash field," the IRNA News Agency quoted Zirakchianzadeh as saying.

But "if Iran's positive diplomacy is turned down, we will be carrying on our efforts at Arash field unilaterally just as we did in Hengam oil field," Zirakchianzadeh said.

Iran is developing its part of the offshore Hengam oil field, shared with Oman, on its own.

Iran is currently extracting some 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from oilfields shared with its neighboring countries and plans to boost the output to 950,000 bpd by 2015 (end of the fifth five-year development plan), an official with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said in January.

Abdolmohammad Delparish added that all development plans related to the joint oilfields will be launched in the current (calendar) year, which ends on March 20, 2012, the Fars news agency reported.

The NIOC managing director Ahmad Qalebani has said that the country's daily oil and gas outputs should amount to five million barrels and 1.47 billion cubic meters by 2015.

Qalebani announced in November that 20 contracts will be signed by the end of the current (calendar) year to develop joint oilfields.


Oil minister Rostam Qasemi has ordered all the contractors of the South Pars gas field development projects to work round the clock in three shifts to complete development of all phases, especially the phases 12, 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Iran has attached the priority on boosting gas production capacity from its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Qasemi said.

Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to grow its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field.

The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.

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