Baku, Azerbaijan, July 12
By Fatih Karimov– Trend:
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh attended a parliamentary session on July 12 to defend the recent deal signed with Total to develop the South Pars gas field, SHANA news agency reported.
He said that the signed deal is completely legal, accusing the critics of being against the foreign investment.
Over the course of 20 years, the Phase 11 of the gas field is expected to produce 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, 335 billion cubic meters of soar gas as well as 290 million barrels of gas condensate and 14 million tons of liquid gas, Zanganeh said, adding that the total worth of the output will reach $185 billion.
He added that Iran has lost some $22 billion because of delays in developing South Pars.
The contractors should pay $6 billion to government for construction of facilities and as taxes during the contract period, Zanganeh said.
Each year of delay in developing South Pars can cost Iran up to $5 billion, he added.
Zanganeh further said that Iran even welcomes US firms’ presence in its oil and gas industry, but the Washington administration imposes lose to the United States companies by preventing them from investment in Iran.
A number of hardliner MPs in Iranian parliament tried to submit an urgent bill on July 12 to stop the implementation of the deal, however their failed due to lack of needed support.
Earlier Zanganeh, in response to certain criticisms expressed by hardliners against the deal said the contract has been approved by a seven-member committee, consisting of four former ministers and experts, representatives of Presidential Office and Supreme National Security Council.
A Total-led consortium and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a contract last week for the development and production of phase 11 of South Pars, the world's largest gas field.
This contract, which has a 20-year duration, is the first Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) and is based on the technical, contractual and commercial terms as per the Heads of Agreement (HoA) signed on November 8, 2016.
Total is the operator of the SP11 project with a 50.1 percent interest alongside the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company CNPC (30 percent), and Petropars (19.9 percent), a wholly owned subsidiary of NIOC.
The South Pars Phase 11 will be developed in two phases. The first phase, with an estimated cost of around $2 billion equivalent, will consist of 30 wells and 2 wellhead platforms connected to existing onshore treatment facilities by 2 subsea pipelines.
At a later stage, once required by reservoir conditions, a second phase will be launched involving the construction of offshore compression facilities.