Iran and China’s Sinopec could sign a long-awaited final multi-billion-dollar agreement for the development of the Yadavaran onshore oilfield, the Iranian oil minister said.
“Iran could probably sign a contract this evening with China’s Sinopec to develop Yadavaran,” Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference.
“If not today, it will be in two weeks’ time. We are still in talks,” the oil minister said.
In late October 2004, Iran and Sinopec inked an initial agreement to develop Yadavaran in southwestern Iran, which is estimated to hold more than three billion barrels of recoverable crude.
Based on that memorandum of understanding, China was to have a 51 per cent share in the project. But Nozari refused to disclose the final financial details.
The agreement also involves China’s purchase of an annual 10 million tonnes of Iranian liquefied natural gas for 25 years, beginning in 2009.
Iran and China have significant economic ties and Beijing is the second largest importer of Iranian goods after Japan.
China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council and has until now been reluctant to support fully a US-led drive to impose a third set of UN sanctions against Tehran because of its nuclear programme.
The United States has been pressuring European and Asian countries to cut their business ties with Iran as another lever to exert pressure on the Islamic republic in the atomic standoff.
