Tehran, Dec 21: Iran and China's biggest offshore
oil producer, CNOOC, have signed a memorandum of understanding
worth more than USD 16 billion to develop a giant natural gas
field, a news agency reported on Thursday.
The deal is aimed at developing Iran's northern pars
gas field and build plants to produce LNG (Liquified Natural
Gas).
"The agreement to develop the northern pars gas field
was signed with Chinese firm CNOOC, this contract involves a
USD 16 billion investment," the report from the semi-official
agency said.
It said the project will be developed in four phases,
with each party taking 50 per cent of the produced LNG.
The investment however will come from the Chinese
side. The upstream investment to explore and produce the gas
comes to USD 5 billion while the downstream investment for the
plants is USD 11 billion.
"The development of the field will take eight years to
complete," the report said, adding the field is estimated to
be holding 80 trillion cubic feet and has the capacity to
produce 431 million cubic feet of gas per day.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, December 21, 2006, 00:00