TEHRAN - The Iranian Offshore Oil Company has announced that it will be signing two gas deals worth a total of $7 billion in the near future.

IOOC Managing Director Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh said here on Tuesday that the Iranian company is in the final stages of talks with a European company and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) over the two gas deals.
Zirakchianzadeh did not reveal the name of the European company but said it has completed the master development plan for the Lavan gas field and, according to the contract, will invest $4 billion in the project to produce 4 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year, IRIB reported.
“India’s ONGC has finished the master development plan for the Farzad B gas field in the Farsi block of the Persian Gulf,” the IOOC managing director explained, adding that ONGC has agreed to invest $3 billion in the first phase of the project to extract 1.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from the gas field.
The natural gas extracted from the Farzad B field will be processed into LNG to be exported to India or other countries, he stated.
The Farsi block is operated by ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of ONGC, along with India’s top refiner, Indian Oil Corp. Ltd., and smaller explorer Oil India Ltd.
In 2006, Iran -- the world’s fourth largest oil exporter which also has the world’s largest gas reserves after Russia -- said ONGC Videsh had found oil in this block.
Iran is drawing interest from Indian and Chinese firms that are keen to tap one of the world’s largest reserves of oil and gas and are less susceptible than many other companies to Western pressure over Tehran’s nuclear program, according to Reuters.