In an exclusive interview with Shana newswire, head of Bank Mellat's international department Saeed Ghafari said: Offering South Pars gas field bonds has started today morning, 10 March.
Stating that the buyers are mainly from the perisan Gulf countries and South East Asia, especially from Japan and Malysia, Mr. Ghafari said bonds worth of 100 euros have been sold and it is predicted all the bonds allocated for the first phase to be sold today .
He added that some foreign banks are interested to buy the bonds but they have been barred from the move due to the US sanctions, even though some of them willing to buy the bonds in an informal way.
Referring to widespread demand for the bonds, Ghafari noted that remaining bonds worth of 750 million euros would be released in one phase in the beginning of the next year on 21 March.
Based on the previous planning it was scheduled total bonds worth of one billion euros to be released in four phases.
The bonds, designed to help finance development of phases 15-18 of the South Pars natural gas field, will have a maturity of three years and an interest rate of eight percent.
the vice president for investment at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) told Shana yesterday the company guarantees the bonds noting that international reputation of NIOC supports the move.
Hojatollah Ghanimifard pointed out that there are different ways to provide resources for oil industry projects including buyback and finance noting that but it is not confined to these methods. Mr. Ghanimifard continued offering bonds is one of the ways to finance oil and gas projects and to diversify financing them.