Iran announces signing of memorandum of understanding with Russia for "major oil investment"
The CEO of the National Iranian Oil Company announced the signing of a "memorandum of understanding" with Russia's Gazprom "worth $40 billion," calling it "the largest foreign investment in the history of Iran's oil industry."
Mohsen Khojastehmehr stated on Tuesday, July 19, that these memorandums of understanding include the development of oil and gas fields, LNG projects, and pipelines.
This memorandum of understanding was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Iran by Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom, and Mr. Khojestehmehr.
His comments about the “$40 billion” memorandum of understanding come at a time when, unlike contracts, there is no set value for memorandums of understanding. A memorandum of understanding is an agreement between parties to negotiate a project that can lead to the signing of a contract and the determination of investment or operational commitments.
In this case, while only a memorandum of understanding has been signed, Mr. Khojastefar has announced that "the Russians are investing tens of billions of dollars in the development of Iran's oil and gas fields."
Gazprom, however, has only published a short two-paragraph news item on its official website about the goals of the "memorandum" and, unlike Iranian officials, has not provided any figures, given the nature of the memorandum and the uncertainty of the investment.
However, Mr. Khojastemehr said that the development of the Kish gas field and the development of the North Pars gas field with an investment of $10 billion by Gazprom have been signed by the parties, and that this investment and development of these two gas fields is expected to add "more than 100 million cubic meters per day" to the country's gas production.
After the JCPOA and in 2017, Gazprom signed a memorandum of understanding to study and develop these fields, but never took any action.
Mohsen Khojastemehr announced that the development of 6 oil fields by Gazprom has also been signed by the parties in a memorandum of understanding, and another major project that will be carried out with an investment of $15 billion by the Russian Gazprom company is the discussion of increasing pressure in the South Pars gas field in order to maintain and increase production of this important gas field.
He added that the Mansouri oil field, Abteimour, Karanj, Azar, and Changuleh are among the other fields that are to be developed with Russian capital in the memorandum of understanding between the two countries.
This is despite the fact that in 2016 and 2017, the National Iranian Oil Company signed a memorandum of understanding with Gazprom Neft, Gazprom's oil arm, on the development of the Changoleh field, and with Russia's Lukoil on the development of the Ab-Timur and Karanj fields, but it never reached a conclusion.
Source: Radio Farda
