TEHRAN – The Danish business conglomerate Maersk may sign a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) to develop oil layer of Iran’s South Pars oil and gas field in Persian Gulf, according to an Iranian oil official.

According to Tasnim news agency, Gholamreza Manouchehri, the deputy managing director of NIOC for development and engineering affairs, told Tasnim news agency that the Danish company has already signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NIOC to study the oil layer and the study project is in progress.
“Development of South Pars oil layer has always been a priority for NIOC and we have planned for the second phase of this project to go based on new oil contracts (IPC),” Manouchehri said.
The official also noted that NIOC is negotiating with several other companies regarding the second phase of South Pars oil layer development project.
NIOC awarded the first phase of this project to Iranian company Petroiran in 2004 but the country has not been able to extract any oil from this field since then.
South Pars oil layer which Iran shares with Qatar in Persian Gulf is known as Al-Shaheen oilfield in the Qatari side and the Arab nation has been extracting from this filed since 1992. For the time being a daily capacity of 300,000 barrels is recorded for this filed.

EF/MA