Iranian firm to develop Mansouri oilfield at a cost of €345m

TEHRAN,June 13(MNA) - The Iranian Oil Ministry has inked a deal, worth €345 million, with an Iranian company to develop the Mansouri oilfield in southwest of the country. The Oil Ministry’s website has not referred to the name of the company, but said that the deal has been inked as EPCF (Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Finance). Mansouri oilfield is located 100 kilometers north of the Persian Gulf coasts and 50 kilometers southeast of Ahwaz City, the capital city of the oil rich Khuzestan Province. The oilfield has been yielding 100 thousand barrels of oil per day since completion of its first phase in 2007. Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has warned all the contractors to avoid importing equipment that is currently being produced domestically. All the contractors who ignore the warning will be omitted from the list of oil ministry's contractors, the Mehr News Agency quoted Qasemi as saying. Even if the prices of Iranian-made equipment are slightly higher, the contractors should purchase the Iranian goods, he underscored. Iranian-made equipment accounted for 5 billion dollars of the mentioned amount, while foreign goods especially Chinese equipment accounted for the rest. Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to grow its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field. Iran's total in-place oil reserves have been estimated to be more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of recoverable oil.