Iran’s Farzad-B Gas Field
Iran has recently handed over the project to its own local company ‘ Petropars Company’ for the development of Iran’s Farzad-B Gas Field. This has caused a lot of damage to India.
Key Points
- It should be noted that the Farzad-B gas field in Iran was discovered by India’s ONGC Videsh Limited Company (OVL).
- In 2008, ONGC Videsh Limited of India discovered a huge gas field in the offshore exploration block of the Persian Gulf; it was named as ‘Farzad-B Gas Field’.
- OVL and its partners had also invested heavily for this discovery, but Iran’s decision to develop the gas field on its own now would result in heavy losses to OVL.
- Because now Petropars Group, a local Iranian company, will extract, and then market, natural gas from the Farzad-B gas field. This will also submerge India’s investment so far in the ‘Farzad-B gas field’.
- Iran had earlier rejected India’s $ 2 billion proposal for the Chabahar railway link project.
Iran’s Farzad-B Gas Field
- The Farzad-B gas field is located in the Persian Gulf. It has 23 trillion cubic feet of gas-reserves.
- Additionally, this gas field has gas condensates, which contain 5000 barrels per billion cubic feet of gas, of which up to 60 percent of the gas, can be extracted. From this field, 28 million cubic meters of gas can be extracted daily for the next five years.
Persian Gulf
- The Persian Gulf lies between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia of the Indian Ocean.
- The Persian Gulf is bordered by eight Gulf countries, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
- The resources of the Persian Gulf are exploited by all these Gulf countries.
- The region is of greater geopolitical importance in West Asia because the Gulf has abundant reserves of crude oil and natural gas.
Importance of Persian Gulf to India
India imports a large part of its energy requirements from the Persian Gulf. Petroleum and natural gas are imported by India from countries located in this region. Additionally, a large diaspora of India lives in these Gulf countries.
Source – The Hindu
