Pergas Says Ready to Replace Companies Leaving Iran Oil Industry

Pergas Consortium is ready to fill the gap created by companies that will be forced to leave Iran's oil industry due to US sanctions that are set to return in a matter of months after Donald Trump withdrew from the country's nuclear deal with world powers, the company's managing director said.

"Either way, making a presence in global economic activities demands a quality of being risk-taking, because if the work has to be accompanied with zero economic risk, maybe your turn to work will never come," Colin Rowley told the news outlet of the National Iranian Oil Company.

He also referred to the post-sanctions implementation of the agreement that was signed for the development of Karanj Oilfield in Khuzestan Province, and said good international conditions to execute a project of that magnitude do not necessarily entail the US being on board.

"I can't personally interpret US leaving the JCPOA as unsuitable international conditions," he said, referring to the acronym for Iran's nuclear deal.

"At least for Pergas and hundreds of other companies throughout the world that have no business in the geography of the US", the JCPOA withdrawal cannot be interpreted as a limitation.

Pergas Consortium in mid-May signed a heads of agreement (HOA) with the National Iranian South Oil Company (NISOC) which envisions extraction of 655 million barrels from the reservoir of the Karanj Oilfield within a 10-year period.

The consortium is made up of 15 international oil and gas companies, including Norway's AGR, OiLSERV, an oilfield services provider, the UK's Looby, an engineering consultancy, Philippine state oil company PNOC and Sharif University of Technology.