Iran drops Polish company from gas field project

National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) dropped Poland's state-owned PGNiG from a Lavan gas field development project, local satellite Press TV reported on Monday. Iran replaced the polish company with a consortium of Iranian companies, which are to sign the contract with Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) in the presence of Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi, according to Press TV. The project aims to produce about 849,505 cubic meters of natural gas daily. After about four years of negotiations between NIOC and PGNiG on a 7 billion U.S.-dollar project, the Polish company was excluded from the field's development due to its repeated delays and missed deadlines, said the report. Iran is under Western sanctions that affect the international development of its oil and gas projects over its controversial nuclear program which the West suspects of military purposes. The Iranian government strongly rejects such allegations. Several Western energy giants, including Total and Shell, have already withdrawn from the country's energy sector. In October, Iran said it decided to replace Russia's Gazprom by domestic companies in Azar oil field after the Russian company failed to meet its obligations to finalize the project. According to local English-language daily Tehran Times, although several big multinational oil companies have pulled out of Iran's oil and gas projects in recent years due to U.S. pressure, Iran has been able to solve the problem by attracting small and medium firms. Iran, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is the world's fourth largest oil producer with an output of about 4 million barrels per day. The country's recoverable oil reserves are estimated at over 137 billion barrels, or 12 percent of the world's total.