30-06-08 India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has discovered an oilfield within its south-western Farsi oil block, an Iranian oil official confirmed. Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude exporter, said in March it had finalised a financial proposal for developing the Farsi block with ONGC.
"India's ONGC has discovered a new oil field in the Farsi oil block of the Persian Gulf," managing director of Iran's state offshore oil company Mahmoud Zirakchianzadeh was quoted as saying. "The Indian company will undertake the development of the newly discovered field upon determining that its development is economically feasible," he added.

OPEC member Iran has in the past put its oil reserves at 138 bn barrels.
ONGC was reported to have previously begun technical studies for the project, which is planned to take place in two phases with an expected yield of 500 mm cf of natural gas per day from each phase.

The Farsi block is already operated by ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of ONGC, along withIndia's top refiner Indian Oil Corporation and smaller explorer Oil India.
Iran is drawing interest from Indian and Chinese players that are keen to tap the world's second-largest reserves of oil and gas and are less susceptible than many other companies to Western pressure over Tehran's nuclear programme.