Lukoil eyes returning Iran's major oil project
Head of Russia’s Lukoil company Vagit Alekperov and Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh considered the possibilities of the company returning to Iran’s Anaran oil project, RIA Novosti reported.
During the discussions held in Vienna, the Lukoil head also put forward some proposals.
LUKOIL, in consortium with Statoil held in Iran exploration work on the Anaran block. Following the results of the work Azar and Shangule oilfields were discovered. Companies discussed with the Iranian authorities the possibility of mining, but the contract has not been concluded.
In 2007, LUKOIL left the project Anaran due to the introduction of international sanctions against Iran. In 2013, Iran reimbursed LUKOIL $ 63 million cost of Anaran project.
Lukoil reopened its office in Tehran in April, with Alekperov saying his energy group would return to Iran as soon as the sanctions were lifted.
Earlier, the other oil giants, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP), Malaysia's Petronas, Spain's Repsol, France's Total and Italy's Eni have expressed interest in returning to the Iranian market following removal of anti-Iran sanctions.
Iran sits atop one of the world's largest natural gas reserves of over 33 trillion cubic meters and, in the near future, the country is set to increase its gas processing and transfer capacity to one billion cubic meters per day from the current level of 600 million cubic meters per day.
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