Iran’s oil minister met and talked with senior executives of Russia’s Lukoil, France’s Total, Austria’s OMW and Italy’s Eni on the sidelines of the 168th OPEC Conference in Vienna.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh held separate meetings with CEO of OMV Rainer Seele, Eni’s Chief Upstream Officer Antonio Vella, Lukoil’s CEO Vagit Alekperov as well as two senior officials of France’s Total.
Rainer Seele, CEO of Austria’s OMV oil company, pointed to the favorable development of oil negotiations with Iran; “currently, the cooperation framework has been determined and the activities of OMW in Iran’s oil and gas industry will resume as soon as the sanctions are removed,” he noted.
Chief Upstream Officer of Italy’s Eni Antonio Vella, for his part, expressed satisfaction towards the progress of oil negotiations between Iran and Italy announcing Eni’s resumption of activities in Iran’s oil industry given the sanctions relief.
Vagit Alekperov, Lukoil CEO, has discussed return of the company to Ilam’s Anaran oil field with Zanganeh offering several other proposals; “moreover, we have signed an MoU regarding the projects on northern part of the Persian Gulf with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC),” he emphasized.
Meanwhile, Managing Director of NIOC Roknodin Javadi had held bilateral talks with major oil companies’ officials last week in Tehran including Total's Middle East-North Africa president Stephane Michel, senior executives of Malaysia’s Petronas, Azerbaijan’s SOCAR as well as Russia’s Lukoil.
Moreover, Malaysia’s Petronas representative has recently reported on the company’s readiness to resume imports of 50 to 60 thousand barrels of oil from Iran if sanctions are lifted adding “a new round of activities between Petronas and the National Iranian Oil Company will begin.”
Over the past few months, big oil companies have expressed willingness to cooperate with Iran during the post sanction period especially on developing Iranian oil fields.