SHANA: Turkmen Gas Halted, 29 Foreign Firms Pre-Qualified

SHANA - National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has released the list of 29 pre-qualified foreign oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) companies for attending tenders aimed at developing upstream projects in Iran's oil sector, in big step to opening up Iran's oil and gasfields to western investment.

Companies are from countries like Germany, France, Italy, India, Malaysia, Russia, Austria, Thailand, Japan, Poland, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, China and others.

They include: Cepsa, China’s CNPC, Eni, Gazprom, Japan Petroleum Exploration, Korea Gas Corporation (Kogas), Lukoil, Maersk, Mitsui, OMV, ONGC Videsh, Pertamina, Petronas, Shell, Schlumberger, Total and Wintershall.  You can find the complete list of the qualified companies here.  

Separately SHANA reported January 1 that Turkmenistan had halted gas supplies to Iran, citing a statement by Iranian state NIGC here. The statement did not indicate how long the stoppage by Turkmengaz might last. NIGC said the Turkmen move was "unanticipated" and disregarded a deal to continue supplies for another five years. That agreement was reported by Shana here as having been reached on December 31, citing an Iranian official.