Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an exhibition of oil industry equipment in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, CEO of Arvandan Oil and Gas Company said a domestic company has been assigned the task of developing three oilfields in the country.
Jahangir Poorhang said Arvandan Oil and Gas Company will begin extracting hydrocarbons from the oilfields as soon as the development project comes to an end.
He further noted that his company is in charge of production in the West Karoon oilfields, which are shared between Iran and Iraq.
The daily output from the joint oilfields has risen by around 250,000 barrels over the past six years, Poorhang said, adding that his company has started hydrocarbon production in “Juffair” and “Darkhovin” oilfields and has also been given the task of production at the “South Azadegan” oilfield.
In comments in October, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the domestic company “PetroPars” has undertaken to carry out the unfinished project to develop phase 11 of South Pars gas field after the Chinese contractor left the project.
In July 2017, French company Total signed a $1 billion deal to develop the South Pars gas field in cooperation with China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) and PetroPars.
But the French pulled out of the deal in May 2018 in light of a decision by US President Donald Trump to pull his country out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Later, the CNPC formally replaced Total in the project, but it suspended investment in Iran in December 2018 in response to US pressures.
The investment halt followed four rounds of talks between Chinese officials and senior US authorities who urged CNPC to refrain from injecting fresh financing in Iran.
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field.