Iran will sign a USD 4B deal with France’s Total to develop phase 11 of the giant South Pars gas field before summer, Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh says. Zangeneh and Total Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne met in Vienna on the sidelines of the OPEC meeting recently and discussed the deal, Fars news agency reported on Saturday.
“The signing of the contract with Total is very close and will be done in less than a month,” Zangeneh told reporters.
Zangeneh said a major European bank will provide guarantees, but did not disclose its name. He also said foreign countries have reached a consensus on Iran’s new oil contract called IPC. Zangeneh said some companies had worries about the new contract but those concerns have been removed now.
The South Pars 11 project will have a production capacity of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day, or 370 000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The produced gas will be fed into Iran’s gas network.
Total will operate the project with a 50.1% interest alongside Petropars at 19.9% and the Chinese state-owned oil and gas company CNPC at 30%.
“We have no problem for the presence of US companies in oil and gas projects in Iran. They are limited by their own government,” he said, adding Iran’s preference is to sign deals with noted international companies.