Chinese Firms Committed To Iran Oil Developments, Says Qasemi

Iran�s Minister of Petroleum Rostam Qasemi told Tehran�s High Council for Development of Oil Industry on 29 July that, �after receiving deadlines from the Ministry of Petroleum, Chinese companies have pledged to develop the Yadavaran and Azadegan oil fields.� He added that the Chinese operators have imported 20 oil rigs in order to speed up the development of the two major oil fields. Sinopec recently produced first oil in Yadavaran and aims to reach 30,000 b/d of capacity soon, while CNPC has awarded a contract for 150,000 b/d production facilities in North Azadegan (MEES, 16 July).

Meanwhile, there are conflicting reports over CNPC�s involvement in the South Pars Phase 11 gas field development. Iran�s semi-official Mehr News Agency reported on 29 July that CNPC had finally dropped out of the $4.7bn development of South Pars 11. This followed a National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) announcement that it had frozen CNPC�s development contract (MEES, 2 July). However, Dow Jones Newswires on 31 July cited an unnamed Iranian official as saying that CNPC is struggling to finance the project, but has not pulled out. CNPC was said to have �some difficulties � it has not brought its financing. There is no formal withdrawal from CNPC. It still has staff in Tehran and in Assaluyeh.�

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