Azerbaijan, Baku, April 26/Trend M. Moezzi
The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has been given 30 days to start work on Phase 11 of Iran's joint South Pars oil and gas field and will be replaced by Iranian contractors if it fails to do so, the Iranian Students' news agency reports.
CNPC got the contract to develop Phase 11 in the spring of 2009 after France's Total and Malaysia's Petronas failed to start working on it. Total and Petronas had won the contract to develop the Phase 11 field and build its liquefied natural gas (LNG) complex in 2004 but delayed starting work.
Iran's contract with CNPC stipulates that Phase 11 will be ready to start production within 52 months, in the fall of 2013. CNPC was to invest about $5 billion (USD) in developing the upstream portion of Phase 11.
Less than a year and a half before its deadline, CNPC hasn't made any progress on Phase 11.
After repeated and failed attempts by Iran to get work started on the field, the Chinese company was given a 30 day deadline to start buying equipment for the project. The deadline was given this year (Iran's solar year ended on March 19).
Phase 11 is especially important because it sits on the border with Qatar's portion of the field. It is projected to produce two billion cubic meters of gas and 70,000 barrels of heavy gas condensates a day.
Iran and Qatar share the 9700 square kilometre South Pars gas and oil field-lay. Qatar, however, is far ahead of Iran in exploiting the field's resources. It has intensified developing South Pars while Iran suffers international sanctions and technical and financial obstacles