TEHRAN (PIN) – Two companies have submitted their requests for purchase of tender documents of 17 oil blocks, said the deputy director of exploration at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Wednesday.

Early this month, Iran officially offered 17 new blocks to international petroleum companies during a two-day meeting in Vienna, Austria.

Five of the blocks are offshore and the rest are onshore. Iran has opened a room to offer information to companies interested in participating in the tenders.

Covering an area of 128,980 square kilometers, the 17 blocks are located in Khorassan Razavi, North Khorassan, Semnan, Ardebil and some part of East Azarbaijan, Golestan, some areas of Ilam and Kermanshah, Fars, and Hormuzgan provinces.  

The 12 blocks of Quchan, Kalat, Raz, Maraveh Tappeh, Moghan I & II, Naftshahr, Ilam, Danan, Fassa, and Bandar Abbas are onshore and the five, Alvand, Deir, Ferdows, Laleh and Taban, are in the Caspian Sea waters.  

Hossein Roshandel told PIN the "information room" had been highly welcomed, indicating the willingness of domestic and foreign companies to purchase the documents. Oil giants Total, Shell, Repsol and companies from China, Thailand, India, and Russia as well as some Iranian companies visited the "information room."

The NIOC head Gholamhossein Nozari had already said that 90 foreign firms had shown an interest in 17 new onshore and offshore blocks.

Iran, the world’s fourth biggest oil exporter, offered the blocks for oil and gas exploration at a meeting in Vienna.

The Islamic Republic, which analysts say needs foreign technology to improve production in its fields, had said it hoped to attract international investment of at least 460 million euros ($599 million) in the blocks.

"The 17 new blocks that have been presented in the recent Vienna meeting have been welcomed by 90 foreign companies for investment," Nozari said last month.

The United States has frowned on deals that Asian and European oil companies have signed with Iran.

Nozari has previously said NIOC was aiming to boost its crude output capacity to 5.3 million barrels per day by 2015 from around 4.2 million bpd now.

In January 2002, NIOC also held an international tender for the exploration and development of 16 oil blocks at a conference in The Hague, the Netherlands.