Gazprom says starts talks on development of 4 gas fields in Iran

ST. PETERSBURG, Jun 15 (PRIME) -- Russian gas giant Gazprom has finished preparations of documents to develop four natural gas fields in Iran – the Farzad-A, Farzad-B, North Pars, and Kish fields – and has launched negotiations on the projects, Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov said in a news conference on Friday.

“Under the memorandum, we were to prepare our suggestions basing on the financial and economic analysis of the documents provided by the Iranian side. We have finished the work as of today, and we have started series of discussions of these four projects with the Iranian side,” he said.

The company also has to work on transportation of gas from the four fields, and a possible Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline is one of the routes under discussion. “As of today, we have signed a memorandum with the Iranian side (for support of the pipeline project). We have not yet signed a document with the Pakistani side, the Pakistani side is studying the document rnow, and the same situation is with India,” he said.

He also said that Gazprom and South Korea have restarted negotiations on a gas pipeline to the country through North Korea.

Gazprom is also conducting a technical audit of construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Iran. The Iran LNG project encompasses construction of a plant with an annual capacity of 5.25 million tonnes and further expansion of the plant to 21 million tonne capacity.

“I can’t say that we will enter the project. We are conducting a technical audit of the project, we will speak about construction once we understand it. After that, we are to discuss our participation in the project,” he said.

Gazprom is yet to receive an answer from Pakistan on exports of LNG to the country. Gazprom submitted a commercial offer to Pakistan in March, but it is still waiting for results of the tender, he said.

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