LONDON–Iran Wednesday confirmed it was seeking ways to recover a natural-gas platform made by an affiliate of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards after it sunk in the Persian Gulf, a setback for the country in its effort to cope with international sanctions.
Divers have been deployed to see how the $40 million, 1,300-metric-ton platform can be pulled up, in the giant South Pars field, the state-owned Pars Oil and Gas Co. Ltd., said on its website.
However, a full-scale recovery has yet to start because of unfavorable weather conditions in the Persian Gulf, it said.
The platform sunk to the bottom of the Gulf as it was being installed by POGC and its builder, Iranian Marine Industrial Co., or Sadra, which is controlled by the Guards.
POGC said it was investigating the causes of the incident, which remain unclear. A spokesman for Pars Oil and Gas couldn’t be reached.
Faced with a ban to import key oil technologies from the U.S. and the European Union, Iran is building its own oil equipment in order to achieve self-reliance.
Write to Benoit faucon and Selina Williams [email protected]
(c) 2013 Dow Jones & Company
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Vessel transits at the Strait of Hormuz fell to seven on Thursday from 11 the previous day, preliminary ship-tracking data showed on Friday, well below the 10-day average of 15.
Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest declared wave of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war.
Iran said it will announce a new restricted zone in the Gulf in the coming days, along with maps of a new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, as a weekend exchange of strikes on shipping sent oil prices higher on Monday.
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