Baku, Azerbaijan, March 9
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
PetroNeft Resources plc, an Ireland-based oil company, has denied holding negotiations with Iran’s North Drilling Company for development of the Middle East nation’s oil fields, a source in the company told Trend.
“We have nothing going on in Iran,” the source said.
Earlier, Hasanad Shirinpour, a senior official with the NDC, told Trend on the sidelines of the 2nd Iran International Exploration & Production Congress & Exhibition that the companies involved in the talks with the NDC are the EY (Ernst & Young) and PetroNeft, as well as the Well Services of Iran.
EY, on their part, declined to comment on the matter.
Tehran, immediately after removing the oil sanctions in 2016, introduced the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) in a move to replace the old buyback model.
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) later said it launched serious talks with potential foreign suitors in order to hold tenders to hand out the development projects.
The country’s shared fields, including West Karoun region, which has five major fields of North Azadegan, South Azadegan, North Yaran, South Yaran and Yadavaran, were among the prioritized projects to be developed in the framework of the new IPC tenders.
Iranian oil ministry plans to boost the output of the region to 700,000 barrels per day by March 2019. However, the oil ministry has been slow in fulfilling the plans and no serious improvement has been reported on any tenders within the IPC model.
Iran’s overall crude output has reached about 3.8 million barrels per day and the country currently exports about 2.6 million barrels of crude and condensate.