CNOOC tight-lipped on Iran-China gas deal
Posted: 03 March 2008
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Iran and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) is to sign a major contract to develop the North Pars gas field according to Iran’s Oil Ministry news website Shana, but details of the supposed agreement remains undisclosed.
The third largest Chinese state oil company was tight-lipped about the deal since it was announced by its Iranian counterpart on February 27, prompting scrutiny from the US for engaging a deal with the country under economic sanctions, reports said.
The Iranian oil ministry portal says the agreement calls for CNOOC to invest $5 billion in upstream gas field projects and $11 billion downstream in LNG plants, a deal the US said it would scrutinize for possible violations of UN sanctions.
Defending the deal which was first announced in 2006, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Thursday that CNOOC’s deal with Iran to develop the country’s North Pars gas field is a business act between enterprises, adding that China is more concerned of nuclear proliferation issue.
CNOOC, which leads China’s fledgling LNG industry, is the parent of Hong Kong and New York-listed CNOOC Ltd, which would be subject to the US sanction law, reports said.
He says actions to address the Iranian nuclear issue should not “undermine normal trade and economic cooperation with Iran.”
The contract worth about $16 billion includes a 4-phase development expected to involve production capacity of 1.2 billion cubic feet per day and 4.8 billion cubic feet daily in total.
Northern Pars field contains 80 trillion cubic feet of gas and each phase of development could have the capacity to produce 1.2 billion cubic feet per day.
In December, China’s Sinopec Group, parent of Sinopec Corp., signed a deal to develop Iran’s huge Yadavaran oil field.
Iran, which sits on the world’s second-biggest crude reserves after Saudi Arabia and the second-largest gas reserves behind Russia, is China’s third-largest oil supplier. |
