OMV Signs MoU with NIOC

Austria’s OMV and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) met in Tehran May 4 and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to evaluate various fields in the Zagros area in the west of Iran, for potential future development. The MoU also covers an envisaged cooperation in the area of technology research, crude and petroleum product swap business.

OMV chief Rainer Seele said the MoU was “an important first step in resuming OMV’s activities in Iran,” and that his company looked forward to “cooperation with NIOC to evaluate whether there are areas of potential cooperation in the exploration and development of oil and gas."

No-one was available from OMV to say if the Zagros prospects were primarily oil or gas-focused.

In addition, OMV and NIOC have signed a joint study agreement for the evaluation of the potential hydrocarbon prospects in the Fars area, for which a two-year study work program has been agreed between the parties.

OMV upstream chief Johann Pleininger said that OMV and NIOC would “combine their exploration expertise and knowledge to jointly evaluate the hydrocarbon prospects of the Fars area of Iran” with OMV providing Improved Oil Recovery/Enhanced Oil Recovery (IOR/EOR) expertise to the Cheshmeh Khosh and Band-E-Karkheh fields in the framework of the signed MoU.

OMV entered Iran in 2001 as the operator of the Mehr exploration block in western Iran, leading to a successful discovery (Band-E-Karkheh) in 2005.

Three months ago Seele set Iran as one of OMV’s three main upstream development priorities, with Russia and Norway being the others.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Austrian firm in March 2016 signed a technical agreement with Abu Dhabi state Adnoc and US producer Occidental to evaluate fields offshore northwest Abu Dhabi.

 Mark Smedley