Deputy Chairman: Gazprom Willing to Develop Several Gas Projects in Iran

Documents for the development of the projects would be soon prepared and later presented to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Markelov was quoted as saying by the Russian media.

He said the projects included the development of Kish, Farzad-A, Farzad-B gas fields as well as one in South Pars energy hub.

“We will negotiate with the Iranian party (NIOC) over the projects and will announce our decision after analyzing Iran’s terms and conditions,” he was quoted as saying by Russia-2 television news channel during a press conference in Moscow.

Kish is believed to be one of Iran’s biggest gas fields with an estimated 1.3 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in situ and more than 500 million barrels of gas condensate. It is located around 30 kilometers east of Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf.

Farzad-A and Farzad-B are twin projects which are also located in the Persian Gulf and are jointly shared with Saudi Arabia.

Farzad-A is largely located in Saudi waters and there is no exact estimate on its reserves.

Farzad-B has a reserve of around 22 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of which about 60 percent is recoverable. Iran had been negotiating the project’s development with India over the past years. However, discussions never led to a deal over differences on pricing and other technicalities.

Both fields were discovered by an Indian consortium back in 2008.

The official further emphasized that Gazprom would also study the development of a major gas to liquid (LNG) scheme in southern Iran – named Iran LNG.

He said the development of Iran LNG had been halted but a series of major facilities for production of electricity had been installed.

“Gazprom will need to study the technical aspect of this project and will decide over whether to take it up or not after its analysis of the project would end,” Markelov said.

Last November, Gazprom said it had signed a basic agreement with the NIOC to develop an LNG project in Iran.