BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/05/2007

Belarus to develop Iranian oil field

MINSK (Thomson Financial) - Belarus will develop an oil field in Iran under an agreement announced by President Alexander Lukashenko during a visit by his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Announcing plans to develop the Jofeir field, Lukashenko told Ahmadinejad: 'You have sought to satisfy all the wishes of the Belarussian side and have allocated to us the deposit we were hoping for.'

'Our experts have examined it and today are ready to extract oil on Iranian territory,' Lukashenko said in comments carried on state television.

The Jofeir field is located close to Iran's border with Iraq and could potentially produce 30,000 barrels of oil per day, Iranian officials were reported as saying by Interfax news agency.

Crude oil extracted from the field would either be processed in Iran or sold elsewhere, Lukashenko said.

Belarus has only negligible oil reserves of its own but does have major oil refineries, which are used for processing Russian oil for further export.

However in recent months Belarus and Russia have fallen out over Belarus' role as an oil transit route.

Lukashenko has repeatedly said he wants to find alternative energy resources for this country of 10 mln people, which lies sandwiched between Russia and European Union and NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

The agreement on the Jofeir field came during a two-day visit by Ahmadinejad to Minsk.

Source:

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2007/05/21/afx3741848.html