Friday, April 14, 2006

China and Iran's dispute over the measure of the Yadavaran oilfield production continues

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.
The regime-run news agency, FARS, quoted the Middle East Economic Digest's article entitled "Sinopec closes in on Yadavaran field development" that states, while the Islamic regime wants to maintain an output of 300,000 barrels per day from Yadavaran oilfield, Sinopec, the Chinese Oil Company refuses to commit to more than 180,000 barrels. READ MORE

In addition it is not yet clear whether the Indian oil company, O.V.L. which also has shares in said oilfield would even go along with China and the Islamic Republic of Iran's conditions on this matter. Based on two agreements signed between the 2 countries, in 2004 the Chinese Sinopec owns 51% and Indian O.V.L. owns 29% of Yadavaran. Due to the impending case of Tehran's nuclear dossier with the U.N. Security Council, both the Islamic Republic of Iran and China are in a hurry to resolve their issues and sign the agreement before any possible sanctions are placed on the Islamic Regime.

Yadavaran oilfield holds 17 billion barrels of crude oil and despite the Islamic regime's efforts to amend it's oil contract, it appears that the basis for the mutual agreement of China and the Islamic regime in this case would be that the sales contracts be reciprocal. As such, according to Chinese media, this is the only yet extremely important dispute between the two governments.