Page 42 - IRANRptApr19

Iran expected to not defend itself?” following criticism of the country’s development of its military industry including rockets.
During the F ebruary 11 celebrations of the Islamic Republic , Rouhani repeated his line that the country has the right to develop its own missile technology. “We have not asked and will not ask for permission to develop different types of ... missiles and will continue our path and our military power,” news agencies reported Rouhani as saying in a speech before tens of thousands at Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square.
9.2 Major corporate news 9.2.1 Oil & gas corporate news
Iran may have seen energy major Total pull out of the investment to develop Phase 11 of the giant South Pars gas field and it may be set to lose China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), which was supposed to upgrade its involvement to step into the French company’s shoes, but on December 15 official energy news agency SHANA reported the CEO of Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas Co. (POGC) as saying his company would alone extract some 630mcm/d from the resource next year.
As Iranian officials explored reports that the Chinese had suspended their involvement in developing part of what is the world’s largest gas field because it might interfere in their trade war talks with the US, POGC chief Mohammad Meshkinfam reportedly put forward the figure, saying it would mark a record increase in Phase 11 extraction. He said the fourth “train” of South Pars Phase 13 would come online within the next two weeks. The facility will be fed by the gas supplied from other phases of South Pars in the Persian Gulf.
Meshkinfam added that Phase 14 would become operational in the next few months, adding 28mcm/d to gas production.
On December 12, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh responded to the reports about CNPC by warning that the company would be held to account if it breached the contract framing the project. Demonstrating how concerned he was by the CNPC move, Zanganeh even joined Twitter to tweet his standpoint—Twitter is banned in Iran.
Zanganeh was reacting to a Reuters report that three state oil executives had said CNPC had frozen its investment in Phase 11 of the field, shared with Qatar. The Chinese corporation in late November replaced France’s Total as the operator of the project.
Total ended its participation in Phase 11 rather than expose itself to US secondary sanctions. When it scrapped the investment it was also in the early stages of planning petrochemical investments in Iran that would use feedstock made with gas from South Pars.
Russia's largest oil company state-controlled Rosneft will drop plans to work in Iran, despite previous investing $30bn and extracting 55mn tonnes of oil with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Vedomosti daily reported on December 12 citing unnamed sources close to the company. Russian oil and gas companies could invest $50bn in development of hydrocarbon fields in Iran , the presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told the press in April 2018. Previous reports claimed that in 2016 Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, and Tatneft oil majors, as well as Gazprom gas giant signed memorandum of understanding with the NIOC.
But reportedly Rosneft started winding down the possible cooperation with NIOC in summer 2018 when the threat of the US sanctions against Iran first
42 IRAN Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com