India’s ONGC in Talks with Tehran over Gas Project

An Iranian oil official said India’s top oil explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp. is in talks with Iran’s state company Pars Oil and Gas Co. to return to a $10 billion gas project following the recent nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and the ensuing lifting of sanctions.

“They (Indians) came to us” to discuss reviving the deal, The Wall Street Journal quoted Ali Akbar Shabanpour, the managing director of Pars Oil and Gas Co., as saying on Tuesday.

He added that an official with the Indian company, known as ONGC, raised the issue during an energy conference in Tehran last week.

“We will get the history and documentation of the project” and discuss a possible return, Shabanpour added.

ONGC discovered gas in the field in 2008, but left the project after 2010 as the US pressured the country to quit doing business with Iran over sanctions against the country.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany- also known as P5+1 or E3+3) on July 14 reached a conclusion over the text of a comprehensive 159-page deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would terminate all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran after coming into force.

Sunday, October 18, was the so-called “adoption day” for the deal, which came 90 days after the two sides concluded their intensive negotiations in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

The Iranian parliament on October 13 voted to pass the details of a motion to implement the nuclear agreement.

The bill allows the Iranian administration to voluntarily implement its July 14 nuclear agreement with the world powers under certain conditions.