Tuesday, June 14 2005 09:51 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Tehran: Iran will give Indian Oil Corp (IOC) and its Iranian partner Petropars a block in the North Pars gas field, which is believed to contain over 47 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, for production of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and its export to India and other countries.

After two-days of Ministerial-level discussions, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh offered to give IOC-Petropars consortium a block in the North Pars gas field.

"North Pars field can produce 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day. One of the blocks in the field will be given to Indian oil firms," Zanganeh told reporters in Tehran.

IOC and Petropars had earlier proposed to develop one of the 20 blocks in the gigantic South Pars gas field.

But, the Minister said, since contracts for almost all the phases of South Pars gas field have been finalised, IOC will be given a block from North Pars field in Persian Gulf.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), which had also evinced interest in taking over one of the blocks of South Pars field for gas production, conversion into LNG and its export, may also be accommodated in a separate block in North Pars gas field.

North Pars was discovered before the South Pars field but has so far not been developed.

IOC had earlier teamed up with Petropars for bringing to production one of the blocks in the 500 sq mile South Pars field, and produce 9 million tones per annum of LNG for export to India and other countries.

The IOC-Petropars consortium had also submitted a $3billion plan to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for development of block and production of LNG.