Iran starts selling bonds worth $410m to finance South Pars projects

TEHRAN,June 27(MNA) - Iran started on Monday offering 5 trillion rilas ($410 million) in bonds to finance its South Pars gas field development plans at Mellat Bank branches nationwide for 6 working days. The 4-year paper will offer a tax-free 20 percent yield per annum. Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) will issue 52 trillion rial in bonds ($4.3 billion) in domestic and foreign currency for the South Pars projects in the current calendar year which ends on March 20, 2013. National Iranian Oil Company’s Managing Director Ahmad Qalebani has said that some $22 billion will be channeled into the South Pars gas field development projects this year. The government should increase its budget for the development of joint oilfields, Oil Minister Qasemi said in August 2011. "The oil industry's infrastructure needs more than 500 trillion rials (about $41 billion) of investment to achieve the objectives of the 20-Year Outlook Plan," he said. The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.