Norway’s DNO inching closer to Changuleh deal

EghtesadOnline: Iran says it has received a proposal from Norway’s DNO oil and gas operator for the development of a major oil field in western parts of the country.

News ID: ۷۷۸۵۰۵

19 August 2017

Gholam-Reza Manouchehri, the deputy for development and engineering affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), was quoted by the domestic media as confirming that DNO’s proposal for the development of Changuleh oil field in Lorestan Province had been received, according to PressTV.

Manouchehri expressed hope that this would lead to an NIOC move to award the project to the Norwegian company, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported.

Jeroen Regtien, DNO’s operations director, was also quoted by IRNA as saying that the company had tried to present what he described as an attractive proposal over the development of Changuleh.  The proposal, added the official, was based on DNO’s existing capabilities.

Several other international companies including Thailand’s PTTEP and Russia’s Gazprom have also signed agreements to study the same field and present their proposals for its development.

Changuleh is located close to Iran’s border with Iraq and is among NIOC’s priority development projects.

Officials in Tehran have already speculated that Changuleh could be linked to another major nearby field named Azar which Iran shares with Iraq's Badra.

They say the field, which is part of the Anaran onshore block, would be developed in two phases to produce 15,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the initial stage before raising output to 50,000 bpd.

Azar and Changuleh were discovered in 2005 as a result of explorations conducted by a consortium comprising Russia’s Lukoil and Norway’s Statoil.  Both fields – together with Iraq’s Badra – are believed to hold an in-place reserve of about 3.5 billion barrels.