Iran to Issue Bonds for South Pars Gas Projects

Iran's Pars Oil and Gas Co (POGC) plans to issue rial and U.S. dollar-denominated bonds worth 52 trillion rials ($4.2 billion) by March 2013 to accelerate implementation of South Pars projects.  Iran is need of large investments for the accelerated development of South Pars fields.

 POGC's financial manager Toraj Jahan Ara told Shana News Agency that there would be $1 billion of dollar-denominated bonds, with the rest rial-denominated. The bonds will be issued in three phases.

 Last year $20 billion of credit was allocated to South Pars gas field projects of which 14 billion dollars were absorbed.

Iran sits on some of the world's largest gas reserves, nearly half of which lie in the world's largest gas field that is not associated with oil, which it shares with Qatar. Energy experts say that Iran has 137.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and 29.61 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves.