According to a report carried by the Economic Times on Tuesday, IOC, India’s largest oil company, is seeking to operate and produce crude oil from the Iranian field in an attempt to promote the South Asian country’s energy ties with the Islamic Republic following the removal of anti-Tehran sanctions.
The report said another Indian firm, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) which is the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), has also offered to develop a couple of oil fields in the Persian Gulf.
It said the fields are part of 16 oil discoveries in the region.
The OVL is already said to be in talks to further develop Iran’s Farzad-B offshore field. The Indian company discovered the Farzad-B field in the Persian Gulf in 2008. The field holds 12.5 trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves.
The bids came after Iran, India and Afghanistan inked a trilateral agreement to establish an international transit corridor, passing through Chabahar.
The deal was signed by the road ministers of the three countries at a ceremony in Tehran on Monday, attended by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The agreement is aimed at bringing about a considerable increase in transit via Chabahar, linking India to central Asia via Afghanistan, and helping Afghanistan have access to the sea.
There has been growing interest in ties with Iran after Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) on January 16 started implementing a nuclear agreement they had finalized on June 14, 2015.
He nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), terminated all nuclear-related anti-Iran sanctions.