Page 47 - IRANRptAug18

9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
MAPNA, Iran’s largest privately-owned industrial and engineering giant, has said it is ready and willing to take over the role of French energy major Total in developing South Pars gas field phase 11 in the Persian Gulf, Tasnim news agency reported on July 21.
Its announcement came after Total said it had decided that it has no choice but to cancel any further business cooperation with Iran because the US is refusing to issue waivers to protect it from the heavy sanctions it is imposing on the country. Total’s CEO Patrick Pouyanne was last week quoted by various media outlets as saying: “There is no other way than to leave Iran’s lucrative project. You cannot operate in 130 countries in the world without accessing the US financial system. Therefore, we are enforcing and complying with US laws and have to leave Iran’s profitable market.”
Abbas Ali Abadi, managing director of MAPNA, said: "I think domestic potential such as MAPNA can take on a significant part of the [Iranian government’s] plans in this situation... During [previous rounds of] sanctions, South Pars phases were developed with internal firms, and there was a great improvement in them, and in recent times these phases have been completed.”
Aliabadi added that "we should not miss the opportunity and we must build on the domestic capacities of the oil industry".
He added that in the past, MAPNA had proposed a development plan for the entire South Pars Phase 11 project.
Aliaabadi added that MAPNA would have no problem in arranging financing for the project despite the current economic pressure Iran is faced by.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), one of India’s most substantial oil importers and refiners, has announced that it is likely to stop importing Iranian crude from November, Donyaye Eqtesad reported on July 30. India is the second largest buyer of Iranian oil. New Delhi has said it will not bow to US sanctions —the sanctions tha t require countries worldwide to stop importing oil from Iran o n pain of penalties kick in on November 4—but individual Indian companies have been left to adopt their own position on the matter. Eurasia Group in late June estimated that India was buying around 700,000 barrels of crude per day from Iran.
"We source from all over the world, and there are plenty of other crudes available in markets like Iraq and Saudi Arabia, among others," V. Srikanth, RIL's group deputy chief financial officer reportedly told Indian media.
Biggest buyer of Iranian oil, China—currently fighting a growing trade battle with the US— has not yet made its position on future imports of Iranian oil clear. The most recent estimates of Chinese purchases of oil from Iran put the volume at somewhere north of 700,000 b/d.
The CEO of Austrian oil, gas and petrochemicals group OMV, Rainer Seele, on June 15 told Reuters that his company was planning to pull out of Iran after concluding a seismic studies project. “Let’s face it, you cannot simply carry on in Iran,” he reportedly said. “US sanctions are a much bigger risk for OMV’s business than any possible compensation that Europe... could offer.” OMV started operations in Iran in 2001 as operator of the Mehr exploration block in the west of the country. It halted work in 2006 due to sanctions, but signed several basic agreements for new projects when the
47 IRAN Country Report August 2018 www.intellinews.com