Date: 08 Mar 2000
Time: 13:09:38
Remote Name: 156.29.145.175
03/08/2000 Asia Pulse (c) Copyright 2000 Asia Pulse PTE Ltd.
NEW DELHI, March 8 Asia Pulse - State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is interested in developing a six million tonne Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in Iran and has sought 40 per cent stake in it.
Corporation officials said ONGC, along with state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was willing to invest upto US$1 billion in the liquefication plant at SouthPars and NorthPars region of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).
The reserves in these region were estimated at 400 trillion cubic feet of gas and the projects were being taken up in phases, sources said adding that ONGC had shown interest in developing phases four and five of the gas field which has an estimated reserve of two billion metric cubic feet of gas.
Other promoters of the field were Petronas of Malaysia and Broken Hill Properties (BHP) of Australia, they said.
ONGC and IOC were likely to hold 20 per cent stake each in the project, NIOC would have 26 per cent and Petronas had sought about 25 per cent equity with the rest likely to be taken up by BHP, the sources said.
The sources said once a deal was finalised a separate joint venture company named Iran -India Gas Company was expected to be set up for the project.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect would be signed next month followed by the visit of a high-level Iranian delegation to India by the end of the month, sources said.