Norwegian DNO inching closer to Changuleh oil deal
13 Aug 2017- Iran has received a proposal from Norway's DNO oil and gas operator for the development of a major oilfield in the west of the country.
Gholamreza Manouchehri, deputy managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for development and engineering affairs, confirmed that NIOC had received the proposal from DNO to develop Changuleh oilfield in Lorestan Province, Press TV reported.
He hoped that this would lead to an NIOC move to award the project to the Norwegian company.
Jeroen Regtien, DNO's chief operations officer, was quoted by IRNA as saying that the company had tried to present what he described as an attractive proposal on the development of Changuleh oilfield.
The proposal, he added, was in line with DNO's current 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 the border with Iraq and is among NIOC's priority development projects.
Officials in Tehran had earlier 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-situ reserve of about 3.5 billion barrels.