Romanian oil company Grup Servicii Petroliere (GSP) said today one of its offshore rigs in the Gulf, involved in a legal dispute, had reported coming under fire from an Iranian navy ship and being boarded by troops, but the claims were denied by Iran.
An Iranian oil official said military force was not used against the Orizont platform, which had been charted by United Arab Emirates-based Oriental Oil Company.
GSP spokesman Radu Petrescu said: "We were called by one of our employees at 9.15 am local time (0615 GMT), who told us a military ship opened fire against the Orizont rig, and by 9.45 Iranian troops got on board."
"By 4 pm the troops left the rig and judicial officers came on board. In between, we had no contact with the crew."
The 13,000-tonne Orizont rig has 26 people on board and has been in Iranian waters since October last year.
The head of Iran's PetroIran Development Company (Pedco), a subsidiary of the National Oil Company, Mostafa Khoee denied the GSP report.
"No military action has taken place. I deny all such reports ... By fabricating such stories, this company is trying to give a negative impression about Iran," Khoee told Reuters.
An official at Oriental Oil said the company had filed a case with the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris in June after GSP terminated the contract for the Orizont and another rig in the area, Fortuna.
"GSP decided to remove both rigs before the arbitration result ... therefore, we went to an Iranian court, which issued an order to keep the rigs where they are until the arbitration result comes out," General Manager Khosrow Arabi said by telephone.
Arabi said the company had subcontracted the two rigs to Pedco, which had sent a helicopter to Orizont to demand the rig remain in Iranian waters in line with the Iranian court ruling.
"They refused to give permission for the helicopter to land ... Then the court asked a military ship to go to the rig and inform them to allow the helicopter to land and it landed and everything is normal now, without any problems," he said.
The Romanian company says GPS has terminated its contract with Oriental and wanted to remove the rigs, because the Gulf company breached the agreement by failing to open a letter of credit.
GPS, which has bought the rigs from Romania's top oil company Petrom , also said Oriental could not subcontract the rigs without its permission.
Romania's foreign ministry said it had scheduled a meeting with Iranian officials tomorrow to find out more about the incident.
© Upstream 2006
