Venezuela has agreed to invest in the exploratory operations and development of 12 Iranian oil blocks, Iranian oil minister said on the sidelines of a seminar on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) industry in Tehran.

SHANA news agency quoted Gholamhoseyn Nowzari as saying that during the recent visit by a Venezuelan energy delegation to Tehran which ended on Saturday, the two sides signed agreement for the participation of Venezuela in the projects.

Iran is already one of Venezuela’s partners in the development of Ayacucho oil field in Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt. The two countries will invest $4 billion in the joint project.

Iran and Venezuela also signed an agreement to develop a new oil field in the Latin American country during Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirezs visit to Tehran in April.

According to the agreement, Iran’s Petropars Company will develop the oil field.

“On the sidelines of the June’s meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries” Forum in Doha, I negotiated with Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, so he will likely pay a visit to Tehran in the near future,” Nowzari said.

Hopefully, the visit would give a boost to the Tehran-Moscow ties in the energy sector, he added.

Iran’s oil minister said Sunday that the price for Iran’s gas imports from Turkmenistan is reduced by half in the county’s recent gas negotiations with the Central Asian country.

The two sides agreed on the price of $170 per thousand cubic meters in their final negotiations, Nowzari said, the Mehr News Agency reported.

Gas imports negotiations with Turkmenistan have been finalized and the new price agreed on by both parties is half the price of the previous contract, he said.

According to the new contract, Irons’ gas imports from Turkmenistan are set to rise to 14 billion cubic meters a year, Iran’s oil minister added.

He went on to note that a new pipeline is going to be built in order to convey the gas produced in Turkmenistan’s Dauletabad gas field to the Iranian city of Sarakhs.

Turkmenistan has been supplying gas to Iran since 1997. Ties between the two energy powers were strained in winter 2008 after Turkmenistan halted gas sales to Iran, but during an official visit by Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to Tehran in February 2009, the two sides inked an agreement which would allow Iran to develop the Yolatan gas field in Turkmenistan and import a portion of the extracted gas annually.

(Rigzone)