company from the South Pars development project and replaced it with another South Korean company, the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) announced last Thursday.
However, the NIOC didn’t identify the new South Korean contractor.
The government has had a very difficult time luring and then keeping foreign contractors on the South Pars project in recent years as pressure has mounted on them from the United States to abandon oil and gas projects in Iran.
The Fars news agency quoted the NIOC as saying that GS Engineering and Construction of South Korea had originally been signed to develop Phases 17 and 18 of the 28-phase South Pars gasfield.
But it said GS E&C was removed when it failed to fulfill its obligations 10 months after signing the contract.
According to PressTV, Gholam-Reza Manouchehri, managing director of the state-owned Petropars Oil Co., said the work has now been assigned to POMC, which he identified as a cooperative owned by Petropars and an unnamed South Korean energy firm.
