MADRID (AFP) — Spain's biggest oil group, Repsol, and British-Dutch peer Royal Dutch Shell are renegotiating their participation in a multi-billion dollar natural gas project in Iran, a Repsol source has said.
"Repsol and Shell are currently negotiating with the government a change" in their participation in the development of the project at Iran's huge South Pars gas field, she told AFP on Monday.
The two firms want to exchange their participation in developing bloc 13 for a role in bloc 20 or 21 due to rising development costs, she added.
On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the two firms had pulled out of the 5.1-billion-pound project to develop bloc 13 of south Pars amid geopolitical uncertainty and rising costs.
The two companies could still participate in developing other blocs, the paper said.
Blocs 20 and 21 will take at least a decade before they become operational while bloc 13 is expected to be developed much sooner, the FT said.
Washington has been putting political pressure on Western companies not to participate in projects in Iran because of suspicions that the Islamic regime is developing a nuclear arms programme.
But the Repsol spokeswoman said US pressure played no role in the decision to renegotiate.
"If this was the case we would not be in talks to exchange one Iranian bloc for another," she said.
The US government told Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol, which both have major interests in the United States, in January 2007 that their project in Iran would probably infringe US law, Spanish business daily Expansion reported earlier this month
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