Business | Oil & Gas
Crescent expects to import Iranian gas in three months
The UAE's Crescent Petroleum expects to start importing gas from Iran's offshore Salman Field in three months, its chairman said yesterday.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:08 June 20, 2008
Dubai: The UAE's Crescent Petroleum expects to start importing gas from Iran's offshore Salman Field in three months, its chairman said yesterday.
"It's imminent. It shouldn't be more than three months," said Hamid Jaafar, who is also executive director of Crescent's parent company, Dana Gas.
"We are discussing additional quantities. We have an option for it but it needs agreement," he said.
The initial agreement between Iran and privately owned Crescent was for the supply of 600 million cubic feet per day.
Dana Gas will process and transport the gas to utilities and industrial users in the UAE.
Iran and Crescent have been locked in long negotiations about the price of gas exports from the Salman Field to the UAE since 2006.
Iran said in April that it would use the gas it planned to sell to Crescent Petroleum domestically if a long-running dispute with the UAE firm over price was not resolved.
The UAE needs the gas to meet rapidly rising domestic demand from industry and power plants.
The UAE needs gas from the $1 billion project to meet rising domestic demand, but the deal became controversial in Iran after some politicians said the export price should be higher.
Jaafar said his company will not be able to take part in Iraqi oil projects as it had been blacklisted by the federal government because it was involved in projects in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.
Iraq's central government has criticised deals that international energy firms have struck with the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), calling them illegal.
The KRG, which has clashed with Baghdad over draft oil legislation, has countered that the deals are legal and comply with Iraq's constitution.
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