Chevron included on shortlist for Pars bidding

LONDON�US oil firm Chevron Corp. is included in the list of 23 international and two Iranian companies bidding for phases 9 to 12 of Iran's offshore South Pars gas project. The tender for phases 9 and 10 was announced recently (OGJ Online, Aug. 31, 2000).

Chevron's possible participation is certain to attract a great deal of interest, especially because it is the first US company to be short-listed for an energy project in Iran since the Conoco Inc. fiasco with the Sirri oil project (OGJ, Oct. 6, 1997, p. 31).

The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which forbids US companies to invest in Iranian projects, is likely to lapse by the time contracts are signed, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' News Agency (OPECNA), quoting the oil weekly Petroleum Argus.

The state-owned Pars Oil & Gas Co. (POGC) will not officially announce the names of short-listed firms until next month, but Petroleum Argus published the list in its latest issue, said OPECNA.

That list includes eight European firms, headed by three British companies�BP, a unit of BG Group, and Royal Dutch/Shell Group.

French firms are equally present with TotalFinaElf SA, Gaz de France SA, and Technip SA. Italy's ENI SPA and Norway's Norsk Hydro AS are the other two successful European firms.

Four Japanese firms were also included on the list, as were Iranian firms Petro Pars and Iranian Offshore Engineering & Construction.

According to POGC's managing director, Asadollah Salehiforoz, a number of US energy firms had been bidding for South Pars phases 9-12, but their names had not yet been published.

Conoco, ExxonMobil Corp., and Amerada Hess Corp., along with Chevron, had recently shown interest in buying seismic data being collected in Iranian waters by the Mid East Geophysical Alliance, led by Norway's Norex Group.

With reserves of 23 trillion cu m, Iran holds the world's second-largest gas deposits, of which 13.1 trillion is located at South Pars.