Iranian ambassador: Joint projects failed

• 5.02.2013, 13:01

Much-hyped joint projects of Belarusian and Iranian dictators have failed.

It was admitted by Iranian Ambassador to Belarus Mohammad Reza Sabouri at a press conference, BelaPAN news agency reports.

He said the project to extract Iranian oil at the oil field Jofeyr had been stopped.

According to him, the decision was taken 1.5 years ago. “The project doesn't exist. No works are being carried out,” the Iranian diplomat said.

Speaking about the reasons for closing the project, he said it had been done for legal and technical reasons, but didn't go into details. “We failed to reach an agreement on these problems and stopped the work,” Mohammad Reza Sabouri said. “We hope that with its experience in the oil sector, Belarus will be able to participate in other projects in Iran.”

Belarus was supposed to produce oil at Jofeyr oil field. The oil field with estimated reserves of 2.1 billion barrels has 22 km in length and 10 km in width.

The ambassador said about the reasons for scrapping the project to assemble Samand cars at Unison plant outside Minsk. This was caused by conflicts of interests of main shareholders.

“The project to assemble Samand cars was carried out together with Iran Khodro company, which owns a 49% stake,” he noted. According to him, “The 49% stake created legal problems.”

The ambassador reminded that the decision to sell the block of shares to the Iranian company had been made in Belarus by “top officials”.