Norway's Saga Wins Drilling Contract in Iran's Western Provinces
August 26, 2000 - 0:0
TEHRAN Norway's Saga Petroleum has won the exploration and drilling contract for oil-rich areas near Iran's western city of Dehloran, the official IRNA news agency reported Thursday.
It cited provincial officials saying that Saga had signed the contract with Iranian oil authorities and would begin seismographic research and drilling soon.
Oil Ministry officials had already announced a contract had been signed with a Norwegian company for the Dehloran region but had not given the name of the winning firm.
IRNA said 11 and 2.5 percent respectively of Iran's land-based gas and oil reserves were located in the western Province of Ilam, where Dehloran is located.
Iran holds the world's second largest gas reserves behind Russia and is the number-two oil producer in OPEC behind Saudi Arabia.
Iran has announced two major oil and gas finds in the past two weeks.
Last Sunday it said it had found a site in southern Iran holding an estimated 23 billion cubic meters (805 billion cubic feet) and another thought to hold more than one billion barrels of oil.
The previous Sunday the Oil Ministry announced the discovery of another large Southern Gas field with estimated reserves worth 4.7 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Royal/Dutch Shell's buyback proposal for Iran's massive onshore Bangestan oil fields appears ambitious, an official with the country's state oil company told Reuters on Thursday.
"They have proposed increasing production by 360,000 barrels per day (bpd). But our engineers think it is closer to 180,000 bpd," Deputy Director of Corporate Planning Eskandar Bavarian told Journalists on the sidelines of the Offshore Northern Seas Conference.
He said the field would need investment of at least $1 billion from Iran in order to keep it producing at the current rate of 270,000 bpd.
Shell and BP Amoco PLS .A are among a string of Western companies talking with Iran about Bangestan, which includes the Ab-Teymour, Ahvaz and Mansouri fields.
Bavarian said it could still be another six months to one year before the project was awarded.
It cited provincial officials saying that Saga had signed the contract with Iranian oil authorities and would begin seismographic research and drilling soon.
Oil Ministry officials had already announced a contract had been signed with a Norwegian company for the Dehloran region but had not given the name of the winning firm.
IRNA said 11 and 2.5 percent respectively of Iran's land-based gas and oil reserves were located in the western Province of Ilam, where Dehloran is located.
Iran holds the world's second largest gas reserves behind Russia and is the number-two oil producer in OPEC behind Saudi Arabia.
Iran has announced two major oil and gas finds in the past two weeks.
Last Sunday it said it had found a site in southern Iran holding an estimated 23 billion cubic meters (805 billion cubic feet) and another thought to hold more than one billion barrels of oil.
The previous Sunday the Oil Ministry announced the discovery of another large Southern Gas field with estimated reserves worth 4.7 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, Royal/Dutch Shell's buyback proposal for Iran's massive onshore Bangestan oil fields appears ambitious, an official with the country's state oil company told Reuters on Thursday.
"They have proposed increasing production by 360,000 barrels per day (bpd). But our engineers think it is closer to 180,000 bpd," Deputy Director of Corporate Planning Eskandar Bavarian told Journalists on the sidelines of the Offshore Northern Seas Conference.
He said the field would need investment of at least $1 billion from Iran in order to keep it producing at the current rate of 270,000 bpd.
Shell and BP Amoco PLS .A are among a string of Western companies talking with Iran about Bangestan, which includes the Ab-Teymour, Ahvaz and Mansouri fields.
Bavarian said it could still be another six months to one year before the project was awarded.