India may continue to pursue investment opportunity in the Farzad-B gas field in Iran, even though ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) lost the development rights of the block that it discovered over a decade ago to local firm Petropars Group, highly placed Government sources told IANS.
Reports from Iran indicate that months the after ejecting India from the ambitious $1.8 billion project, Tehrann has now brought in Petropars Group to develop the gas field in the Persian Gulf.
But the sources said that this would not deter the Indian entity from pursuing energy assets in the country and remain invested in the project. In fact, they indicated that Iran may formally announce a partnership with the Indian firm once development work of the field picks up pace.
Sources in the Oil Ministry said that Indian consortium including IndianOil, Oil India and OVL, which bagged the exploration contract for Farzad-B in 2002, may remained invested in the upstream project as equity partners with other local and international entities even without operatorship or development rights. They are in talks with Iranian authorities in this regard to formalise the arrangement that gets India a share in gas fields output, they said.
