ONGC, European firm set to sign major energy deals in Iran

14 April 2009

Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and an unnamed European firm are expected to conclude energy contracts totalling $7 billion with Iran, state-run broadcaster IRIB said today.

The two contracts are likely to be signed in the near future, IRIB said, citing Mahmoud Zirakchian-zadeh, managing director of Iran's Offshore Oil Company (IOOC).

ONGC, which had completed a development plan for the Farzad gas field, is expected to make investments of about $3 billion for which "contractual and financial negotiations" are under way, he said.

The gas field forms part of the Farsi block in the Gulf.

ONGC had also discovered an offshore oilfield, Binaloud, in the Farsi block with one billion barrels of in-place reserves of heavy crude, state television quoted him as saying earlier.

In November in New Delhi, a senior source at a company holding a stake in the block said