Petropars Seeking Tenders For South Pars Gas Field

A company official at Petropars has said that he expects the decision on tenders for the development of phases 6, 7 and 8 of the South Pars gas field to be made by late July.

Akbar Torkan, who is both the Chairman and President of Petropars, said at a London based Iranian energy conference that negotiations are in progress with Statoil, which is interested in taking a stake in the phases.

A senior Iranian energy source recently said that Statoil wants a forty percent stake in the three phases, of which Petropars is the operator. Torkan said it is still uncertain whether Enterprise Oil will relinquish its existing twenty percent stake in the three phases.

Torkan said since Enterprise was taken over by Shell, it has been unclear whether Shell would still want a stake in the project. “We are waiting to get the latest decision from Shell,” he said. However, he said for several months Enterprise has not fulfilled its payments to Petropars for its 20% holding.

The Pars field is shared by Iran and Qatar. Gas reserves in Iran 's share of the field, South Pars, are estimated at 464 trillion cubic feet.

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