Sorry to break your heart but looks like the contracts are going to China who is part of the peace gas pipeline project
what a shame India backstabbed Iran just when we were about to sign for 1.5 years India stalled ...
Iran, China Sign $1.7bln Oil Contract
Jan15,2010
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and China on Wednesday signed a 1.76 billion dollar contract for the initial development of the North Azadegan oil field in western Iran, an Iranian oil ministry official said.
Jiang Jiemin, the president of CNPC, China's largest oil and gas company, and the head of National Iranian Oil Company, Seifollah Jashnsaz, signed the contract to develop part of North Azadegan oil field.
The agreement between China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) foresees production from the field reaching 75,000 barrels a day in four years' time, the official said.
Iran hopes to earn an estimated $16bln in oil revenues over 25 years. If that timetable is maintained, Iran may award CNPC the contract for the second phase, when production is scheduled to double.
The North Azadegan oil field, located in southwestern Iran next to the Iraq border, has reserves of 6bln barrels of oil. The field is attached to southern Azadegan, the country's largest oil field, the development of which was delayed when Japan's Inpex withdrew in 2006 under US pressure.
Western oil companies have refused to invest in Iran because of US pressures.
Outline agreements have been signed with several Asian companies but the deal between CNPC and NIOC is the first major oil sector contract finalized in recent years.
CNPC this month began work on developing the Al-Ahdab oil field in Iraq following the signing of a three billon dollar contract.
This follows China's Sinopec contract in 2007 to develop the Yadavaran oilfield.
Iran, which sits on the world's second largest reserves of both oil and gas, is facing US sanctions over its civilian nuclear program.
Iranian officials have dismissed US sanctions as inefficient, saying that they are finding Asian partners instead. Several Chinese and other Asian firms are negotiating or signing up to oil and gas deals.
In a last case, Iran signed gas deals worth $14 billion with Malaysia's SKS Group in early December, including a contract to build an LNG plant.
Following US pressures on companies to stop business with Tehran, many western companies decided to do a balancing act. They tried to maintain their presence in Iran, which is rich in oil and gas, but not getting into big deals that could endanger their interests in the US.
Yet, after oil giants in the West witnessed that their absence in big deals has provided Chinese, Indian and Russian companies with excellent opportunities to sign up to an increasing number of energy projects and earn billions of dollars, many western firms are increasingly showing interest to invest or expand work in Iran.
Some European countries have also recently voiced interest in investment in Iran's energy sector after a gas deal was signed between Iran and Switzerland regardless of US sanctions.
The National Iranian Gas Export Company and Switzerland's Elektrizitaetsgesellschaft Laufenburg signed a 25-year deal in March for the delivery of 5.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
The biggest recent deal, worth €100m ($147m, £80m), was signed by Steiner Prematechnik Gastec, the German engineering company, this year to build equipment for three gas conversion plants in Iran.
Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's illegitimate calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.
The UN sanctions address individuals and companies involved in nuclear- and arms-related activities without banning daily trade and non-nuclear investment.
But the US has imposed unilateral restrictions in particular on financial transactions and big investments.
Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for other third-world countries. Washington has laid much pressure on Iran to make it give up the most sensitive and advanced part of the technology, which is uranium enrichment, a process used for producing nuclear fuel for power plants.
Washington's push for additional UN penalties contradicts the report by 16 US intelligence bodies that endorsed the civilian nature of Iran's programs. Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head - one in November and the other one in February - which praised Iran's truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions on Iran seems to be completely irrational.
they were there preparing chicken kebobs for you guys and rolling the persian carpet and Indians voted against Iran all those years of cooperation ...
