Saudi Arabia rejects Iran’s claim to Arash gas field
Saudi Arabia has announced that it rejects Iranian claims to partial ownership of the Al-Durra gas field, known in Iran as the Arash field, following a similar recent announcement from Kuwait, the Saudi Press Agency reported on 5 July.
According to an informed source in the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Durra-Arash field is jointly owned by “the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the State of Kuwait only, and they alone have full sovereign rights to exploit the wealth in that region.”
The Durra-Arash field is located in the waters of the Persian Gulf off the coast of Kuwait and holds an estimated 20 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves.
The source added that the Saudi Kingdom called for renewing its previous calls to start negotiations with Iran to demarcate the borders of the underwater field, in accordance with the provisions of international law.
Last week, the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Mohsen Khojastehmehr, announced that Iran was ready to begin drilling in the Durra-Arash field.
“Once the necessary conditions are met, drilling operations in the Arash field will begin,” he said.
However, on 3 July Kuwait announced it was rejecting Iranian drilling plans.
“We categorically and totally reject Iran’s planned activities around the premises of the Durra offshore gas field,” Kuwaiti Oil Minister Saad al-Barrak said, according to the official Kuwait News Agency.
Barrak added that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have “exclusive rights” to the field and that Iran’s plans “contravene the basic principles of international relations.”
The dispute dates back to the 1960s when Iran and Kuwait awarded overlapping offshore concessions for the field following its discovery.
Iran objected last year to a previous Saudi-Kuwaiti agreement to exploit the Durra field without Iranian involvement. The Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that such a move was “illegal” as the boundaries of the field shared between the three countries had not yet been established.
The Saudi and Kuwaiti announcements are a setback in relations with Iran, which were restored recently following Chinese-backed talks in March.
The announcements also follow Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s visit to Kuwait last month as part of a Gulf diplomatic tour.
Abdollahian held talks with the Kuwaiti premier and the country’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
The parties discussed “the latest developments in the regional and international scene” in a meeting with Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nawaf al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, according to Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA.