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Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that the country will put its largest oil field, Azadegan, on tender to finalise a deal for its development study by summer 2018.
"A deal will be concluded by summer next year if the tender goes as planned," the petroleum minister said on Saturday on the sidelines of signing a gas deal with Russia's Gazprom in Tehran.
Ali Kardor, the chief executive officer of Iran's state oil company, NIOC, said Friday that Japan's INPEX, China's CNPC, Royal Dutch Shell and France's Total have presented their proposals on Azadegan.
"Other companies have requested more time to submit their technical surveys," Kardor said without providing details, reports Xinhua.
Malaysia's Petronas is also interested in the project, having presented its findings on the oilfield, according to the report.
Azadegan is shared with Iraq, and Iran is in a race with its neighbour to develop the reservoir. Iran's share of the field amounts to some 33 billion barrels of crude in place.
Dutch Shell has developed the Iraqi stretch of the reservoir, known as Majnoon oil field in the southern city of Basra. Majnoon came into production in 2014.
Iran has split Azadegan to the northern and southern sections to speed up development. The field's output is around 80,000 barrels per day (bpd).
Iraq is pumping between 220,000 and 230,000 bpd from Majnoon, nearly three times over the Azadegan output.