India drops ONGC-Discovered Iranian Gas Field
In a major corporate setback, India on Monday lost the ONGCVidesh Ltd-discovered Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf after Iran granted a contract for developing the significant reserve to a local company.
“The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed a contract worth $1.78 billion with Petropars Group for the development of Farzad B Gas Field in the Persian Gulf,” the Iranian oil ministry’s official news service Shana reported. “The deal was signed on Monday, May 17, in a ceremony held in the presence of Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh in Tehran,” it further included.
The gas field holds 23 trillion cubic feet of in-place reserves, of which about 60 per cent is recoverable. It also holds gas condensates of about 5,000 barrels per billion cubic feet of gas.
The buyback contract signed on Monday envisages daily production of 28 million cubic meters of sour gas over five years, Shana said.
ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas investment arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), had in 2008 track down a giant gas field in the Farsi offshore exploration block.