TEHRAN (Platts) -- Iran and Azerbaijan, members of the OPEC+ alliance, are looking at finalizing “soon” a number of energy deals, including joint development of an oil field in the Caspian Sea, Iranian oil minister Javad Owji said. “Some agreements were made,” Owji was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency after a meeting with Azerbaijan’s first deputy prime minister, Shahin Mustafaev. “Initial talks were held regarding [a] gas deal with Azerbaijan, gas swap from neighboring countries with Azerbaijan, the contract for transfer of gas to Nakhichevan and development of oil fields in the Caspian Sea.”
Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan enclave, located between Armenia, Iran and Turkey, receives gas from Iran under a swap arrangement agreed to in 2004, with Baku supplying gas to the Iranian city of Astara.
“We hope that this meeting leads in the coming weeks to expansion of oil and gas cooperation and development of the two countries’ fields,” Owji said.
The two oil producers have been developing oil and gas cooperation over the past years. The two states signed a memorandum of cooperation in 2018 for joint work in an oil field located in the waters of the Caspian Sea.
“We discussed a few new projects and I believe that new documents will be signed in the near future as the result of these talks,” Mustafaev was quoted as saying by IRNA.
In 2011, Iran announced discovery of 50 Tcf of gas in the Caspian Sea field called Sardar Jangal, whose oil in place later was estimated at 2 billion barrels.
Iranian oil officials have previously said that the reservoir’s development required deep-water technology which Iran does not have.
Numerous disputes have hampered the development of oil and gas production and infrastructure projects in the Caspian since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2018, the five littoral states of the Caspian Sea - Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan - signed a convention providing a legal framework for sharing access to the area and its resources.