Iranian contractors speed up South Pars operations

Azerbaijan, Baku, June 11/Trend M. Moezzi

As domestic contractors speed up their work on Iran's joint south Pars oil and gas field, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has yet to start work on phase 11.

CNPC signed the $5 billion contract to develop South Pars' phase 11 three years ago, Mehr news agency reports.

Last fall, Rostam Ghasemi, Iran's Oil Minister, met with CNPC officials to set a new timeline for the project and issue an ultimatum on phase 11's progress.

In the eight months since that meeting, the CNPC has opened an operations headquarters at the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone. It has done nothing to begin the actual construction of Phase 11's facilities.

CNPC beat out France's Total and Malaysia's Petronas in getting the contract to develop Phase 11.

There has been talk that fines will be levied against the Chinese oil company. The NIOC has said repeatedly it will fine slow-moving companies working on South Pars as much as $50 million a month for every month they're late.

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

Qatar began work on South Pars ten years before Iran and has intensified developing the field while Iran has suffered setbacks from international sanctions and technical and financial obstacles.