The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and France’s oil giant Total will ink a confidentiality agreement on development of Iran’s South Azadegan oilfield in the coming days, the Mehr news agency quoted Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh as saying on Monday.



The deal is coming after Total agreed to buy 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude for delivery in Europe.



South Azadegan is one of the five oilfields, dubbed the West Karoun oilfields, Iran shares with Iraq at the western part of Iran’s southwestern region of Karoun.  



Iran discovered Azadegan oil field in 1999 in what was the country’s biggest oil find in decades. The country accordingly teamed up with Inpex to push the project toward development.  However, the Japanese company quit the project in what appeared to be a result of the U.S. sanctions against Iran, according to Press TV.



NIOC later divided the project into South Azadegan and North Azadegan and both were awarded to China’s CNPC.  



In 2014, Iran sidelined CNPC from South Azadegan due to its protracted delays in developing the field.



South Azadegan is believed to hold an in-place oil reserve of about 33.2 billion barrels and its recoverable resources estimated at about 5.2 billion barrels.



Development of joint oil and gas fields is a priority of the Iranian government.  

The OMV group, the international, integrated oil and gas company headquartered in Vienna, is negotiating for a long term contract of crude oil with National Iranian Oil Company.

“Iran’s oil export to Austria has kicked off through spot contracts,” said Seyed Mohsen Ghamsari, Executive Director for International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), when asked about the latest status of Iran-Austria oil trade and the agreements signed with the OMV group, an integrated international oil and gas company headquartered in Austrian capital city of Vienna.

The official announced that so far a cargo of 1 million barrels of crude oil has been delivered to the OMV group and concurrently the talks for signing a long term contract of oil sale to the Austrians are underway.

“No final agreement has been reached yet,” reiterated the board member of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), “hence no volume of oil trade for the long term contract has been agreed upon.”

Two weeks ago, the OMV group announced that the company has received an Iranian cargo of 1 million barrels of crude oil at Italian port of Trieste. 

Iran’s oil exports to Spain have climbed by three million barrels per month upon signing short-term contracts with Cepsa, Respol as well as BP oil industry companies.

According to Mehr News agency The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Spain’s Repsol S.A. have inked an agreement to deploy a one-million-barrel shipment on a monthly basis turning Repsol into the second Spanish buyer of the Iranian crude after Cepsa.

The new contract, which follows an earlier one signed with Cepsa (Spanish Petroleum Company), had doubled Iran’s oil export volume to the European country.

In addition, NIOC has sealed a separate agreement with BP (British Petroleum) in the form of spot contracts to export a total of one million barrels per month.

Signing of three contracts to sell oil to Cepsa and Repsol of Spain and well as BP, the volume of Iran’s crude exports has tripled as compared with the figure during sanction years.

Executive Director for International Affairs at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Seyed Mohsen Ghamsari had earlier confirmed the talks with BP saying “in case of reaching an agreement, crude will be sold to BP in order to supply one of its refineries in South Africa or in other parts of the world.”

Deputy Oil Minister Roknodin Javadi had also noted that a separate round of talks has begun with the English company over oil sale resumption; “BP has so far expressed willingness to expand a number of Iran’s oil fields.”

On Iran’s new plans to construct refineries in foreign countries, Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Company (NIORDC) Abbas Kazemi had underlined "we have proposed to construct crude oil refineries within the framework of equal shares and partnership in Spain"; “NIORDC mainly undertakes the technical feasibility and economic justifiability of the project while NIOC remains as the key decision maker.”