Translated material
"Data exchange"
Iran offers LUKOIL a new oil field
LUKOIL has every chance to gain a foothold in Iran. As Iranian media reported yesterday with reference to the managing director of the Iranian state oil company NIOC, Gholam-Hossein Nozari, Iran is negotiating with LUKOIL on the development of the North Azadegan oil field in the south of the country. “Negotiations are at an early stage. We are exchanging data on the field and hope that LUKOIL will soon propose a master development plan,” he told reporters. In addition, according to local newspapers, a joint venture between Norwegian Hydro and LUKOIL successfully drilled a second exploration well in the area of the Anaran field, which made it possible to discover new hydrocarbon deposits. LUKOIL declined to comment, but confirmed its interest in the Northern Azadegan development project. It was not possible to contact representatives of the Norwegian Hydro yesterday.Ravil Maganov, First Vice President of LUKOIL, spoke about his desire to work in Iran, including within the framework of the Azadegan project, in mid-November. According to him, this deposit is attractive primarily due to its volume. At the same time, Mr. Maganov said that the head of Lukoil Overseas, a 100 percent subsidiary of LUKOIL engaged in production at the company’s foreign projects, Andrei Kuzyaev, had already traveled to Iran on this occasion. However, after this there were no new messages from the company.
As experts note, Iran has enormous oil potential, closed to the world market, and now many companies of non-American origin are trying to gain a foothold in this country in order to use the accumulated experience in the future, when the political situation there has more or less stabilized and investing in its oil projects will no longer be possible. so risky. Moreover, Iran is still using the practice of attracting foreigners as service companies. Thus, in addition to Russia, Indian and Chinese companies are also laying claim to the same “Northern Azadegan”.
But even having received a contract for the development of deposits, companies may lose it. Indeed, in 2004, the Japanese Inpex won a tender for a 75 percent share in the project to develop the giant Azadegan field, the proven reserves of which reach 26 billion barrels (about 3.7 billion tons). Investments in this project were estimated at $2.5 billion, and annual production at its peak was 13.5 million tons per year. But in October of this year, Iran reduced Inpex's share to 10%, since during this time the Japanese had not started development. Inpex explained this by saying that it would not be able to begin development of the field until Iran cleared the area of all mines left after the war with Iraq in the 80s. Now 65% of this project has been temporarily transferred to another participant - Naftiran Intertrade Co. Perhaps LUKOIL will receive this 65%.
Two years ago, LUKOIL tried to participate in a tender for a project to develop three oil fields in southern Iran - North Azadegan, Kushk and Hosseiniye. But to no avail. This year, Iran has repeatedly hinted that it is ready to cooperate with Russian companies, including LUKOIL, despite the latter having an American strategic partner and shareholder - ConocoPhillips. In mid-December, Deputy Head of the Ministry of Industry and Energy Ivan Materov, during a working trip to Tehran, told reporters about Iran’s readiness to transfer to Russian companies the right to explore 17 oil and gas areas. So "North Azadegan" could be one of them. And the position of LUKOIL itself in this country became more promising after this summer it and Hydro managed to discover the Azar field in the Anaran block with reserves of about 2 billion barrels of oil (285.7 million tons).