OREANDA-NEWS. September 26, 2011. Iran's Oil Ministry has asked Chinese CNPC to develop phase 11 of the giant South Pars gas field in a 35-month period with a warning that otherwise, domestic or foreign contractors would replace it.

The issue was raised in a meeting between Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi, Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Ahmad Qale'bani and top managers of the Chinese company in Tehran, Mehr news agency reported.

Stating that currently, the development plans of the South Pars' phases are underway in the form of 35-month contracts, Qasemi said, “CNPC lags behind the schedule to develop phase 11 of the shared South Pars (gas field).”

The minister underlined that in case the Chinese company continue to delay, the project will be assigned to either domestic or foreign investors.

The new round of talks between Iran and China, to identify the fate of phase 11 of the South Pars, has been started in Tehran from this week.

In 2009, Iran signed a USD 4.7 billion deal with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), to help develop phase 11 of South Pars, saying it replaced Total because of the French company's repeated delays.

The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 24 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves, and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.

Iran has the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia.