Tehran, Iran, March 3
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad – Trend:
Two senior Iranian oil officials have said that talks are underway with neighboring Azerbaijan to widen cooperation.
“We are currently in talks with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to expand cooperation in the field of gas and oil,” Iranian Deputy Oil Minister for International Affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia told Trend on Saturday on the sidelines of the 2nd Iran International Exploration & Production Congress & Exhibition (Iran E&P 2018) in Tehran.
In the meantime, Deputy Head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for Engineering and Development Affairs, Gholamreza Manouchehri, has said the talks with Azerbaijan’s SOCAR for deepening cooperation are underway.
However, the officials both refused to provide further details on the current situation of discussions.
According to earlier reports, officials from Iran and Azerbaijan over the past months have discussed the exploration and development of Caspian Sea oil and gas fields.
Caspian region, as one of the oldest oil-producing areas in the world, holds an estimated 48 billion barrels of oil and more than 8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in proven and probable reserves.
NIOC chief Ali Kardor earlier pointed out that Tehran is interested in collaboration with foreign majors to develop offshore oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea, an increasingly important source of global energy production.