A senior official from Austrian energy company OMV AG has said that the company will not be pressured by Iran to immediately invest in the huge South Pars gas field.
News wire the Dow Jones, reported that OMV’s head of exploration and production said that the company would rather be dropped from the project by Iran rather be forced into making a hasty decision on its investment in Phase 12 of South Pars.
“On and off they say ‘You should start here by such and such date’ and then we say ‘wait and see until the oil price recovers’,” Langanger is quoted as saying.
“If they wanted they could replace us … They are proceeding with the project on their own without us and they don’t get hampered by us,” he added.
The Austrian company’s involvement in Phase 12 also included the construction of a gas liquefaction plant.
OMV AG is the latest in a long line of companies whose interest has cooled towards investing in Iran. The current political climate in the country, coupled with fears over its nuclear programme has resulted in a number of high profile energy companies, such as Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol dropping investment plans.
South Pars is the world’s largest gas field. Iran shares the field with Qatar.
