State-run Chinese energy giant Sinopec has offered Iran a $3-billion deal on further development of an Iranian oilfield the two countries are already working on, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The offer made by the China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec) is part of an existing contract to operate the Yadavaran oilfield in southwest Iran on the Iraqi border, the report said.
The Chinese believe the offer wouldn’t violate a US ban on signing new development deals with Iran because the Yadavaran contract goes back to 2007, according to people familiar with the matter.
Sinopec has told its Iranian counterpart, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), it wants its share of the field’s production to be granted under the US waiver allocated to China, one person said.
The new deal was offered by Sinopec in late December 2018 when the US allowed China to keep purchasing as much as 360,000 barrels of Iranian oil a day, the Journal said.