Tehran, Iran, Aug. 4
By Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is slated to visit Iran in a few days amid growing Indian interest in three Iranian oil and gas projects.
Iran and India had previously made initial agreements on the three projects, but the southern Asian subcontinent refrained from further cooperation under international sanctions directed at the Islamic Republic.
The three projects include the development of Farzad B gas field, the restoration of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, as well as repairing and renovating Iran's oil and gas infrastructure, Fars news agency reported August 4.
This is while an Indian delegation of representatives from the central bank, oil and gas, and finance ministries had paid a visit to Tehran just last week.
Reports said the delegation had discussed how to settle a due $6.5 billion sum owed by Indian refineries to Iran.
Rajiv Mehrishi, secretary in the department of India's economic affairs, is understood discussed with the Reserve Bank of India a feasible route for crude oil payments to Iran. The pending payments for crude oil could happen in tranches. Earlier, state-owned UCO Bank had tied up with Iranian lenders - Parsian, Pasargad, Saman and EN Banks - for the settlements of dues.
After settling the debts, India intends to increase its import of oil from Iran.
Getting access to the Farzad-B assets is vital for OVL to achieve the milestone of producing 20 million metric tons of oil and equivalent (mtoe) by 2018. The Farzad-B field, estimated to have 21.68 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas reserves, was discovered by OVL in 2012, but no formal contract to exploit the resources has been signed till date. The US sanctions on Iran prevented both sides from making any headway in commercial exploitation of the reserves, with each blaming the other for the delay.
Indian refiners MRPL, Essar Oil and IOC have been buying crude oil from the Islamic nation. However, the payments could not be routed due to sanctions levied by the US and other Western powers. India, the world's fourth largest oil consumer and also the second biggest buyer of Iranian oil after China, stood with the Islamic nation while it was hit by sanctions.
Edited by CN