Iran has given the final ultimatum to India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) to offer a more attractive master plan for development of the coveted Farzad-B Gas Field project in the Persian Gulf, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Sunday.
“Several rounds of negotiations so far have been held with the Indian state company on the development of Farzad-B. But ONGC’s financial proposal for the project is not acceptable,” Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
A consortium of ONGC, Oil India and Indian Oil Corporation discovered huge amount of gas reserves in the Farsi Block in 2008. The discovery was later named Farzad-B.
However, the consortium could not obtain the permission to develop the field due to tighter international sanctions imposed over the dispute on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Underscoring that Iran has set a deadline for the Indian firm to submit a reasonable development plan, he noted, “We won’t wait any longer for the Indians and if they fail to propose a sound financial proposal in the meeting planned for this month in Tehran, we will change our mind.”
Zanganeh, however, expressed optimism the two sides would reach an understanding.
Farzad-B Gas Field holds an estimated 508 billion cubic meters of in-place reserves, of which 370 bcm is recoverable.
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