Dow Jones reports that CNPC has not bailed out of its $4.7 billion project to develop phase eleven of the South Pars gas field.
Citing an Iranian and a Chinese official, the report says that, while CNPC is struggling to finance an Iranian natural-gas project, it has not pulled out.
CNPC has had “some difficulties [developing the project],” the Iranian official said, adding that “it has not brought its financing.” However, “there is no formal withdrawal from CNPC. It still has staff in Tehran and in Assaluyeh,” the southern Iranian port city where the project is being overseen, the official said. CNPC’s staff numbers have been “very low” in the past two years.
Reuters, citing Iran’s Mehr news agency, had reported that CNPC had pulled out its workers from Asaluyeh, the city on the shore of the Mideast Gulf close to the South Pars gas field, and CNPC is over three years behind project timescales and has not begun preliminary landscaping at the site.
