The contracts were signed in the Austrian capital of Vienna by an Iranian banking delegation which included representatives of 14 domestic banks headed by Mohammad Khazaei, the president of the Organization for Investment Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran. Deputy Head of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) for Foreign Exchange Affairs Ahmad Araqchi was also a member of the delegation.

The first major finance deal worth €1 billion was signed on Thursday between Austria’s Oberbank and a dozen Iranian banks. The Austrian bank thus became one of the first European financial institutions to break the ice in providing loans for Iranian projects following the removal of Western sanctions in early 2016.

Oberbank, Austria’s seventh-biggest bank, with a balance sheet of roughly €20 billion ($24 billion), signed the deal with 14 Iranian banks at its headquarters in Linz.

President of the Organization for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran Mohammad Khazaei (2nd L) and Oberbank’s Chief Executive Franz Gasselsberger (2nd R) attend a press conference following the signing of a major finance deal between 14 Iranian banks and the Austrian bank in Vienna on September 21, 2017.

The move was groundbreaking particularly given that many banks — mainly those from Europe — are still standing away from Iran’s funding prospects over fears that they may fall afoul of remaining US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Officials in Tehran are hoping that this would set the stage for similar moves by other European banks in the near future.

The Iranian signatories included veteran private banks such as Parsian Bank, Saman Bank, Eqtesad Novin Bank, Bank Parargad, Karafarin Bank and the newly established Middle East Bank. Others were former state banks that were privatized over the past few years such as Bank Melli Iran, Bank Mellat, Bank Sepah, Tejarat Bank, Bank of Industry and Mine, Export Development Bank of Iran, Refah Bank and Keshavarzi Bank.

The agreement which envisages a funding ceiling of €1 billion covers projects by Austrian companies in Iran’s production and development projects lasting more than two years.

Speaking on the sidelines of the signing ceremony, Oberbank’s Chief Executive Franz Gasselsberger said, “Today was a great day in the two countries’ relations as this was the first finance deal between a European bank and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Although the negotiations on the deal took long for several months, the outcome was quite favorable and satisfying for both sides.”

He added the contract will prepare the ground for Austrian companies and industries in different sectors, particularly health and infrastructure, to invest in Iranian projects and export products and modern technologies to the Middle Eastern state.

“In case on some day in the future, we look back at this day, we will realize that this contract has served as a turning point for the two sides to deepen their relations.”

Gasselsberger said Iran’s economy, in addition to those in Austria and other European countries, is extremely attractive for the entire world as the Middle Eastern state has a hardworking and smart young generation that can create great opportunities for their own country and other nations.

“There must be a win-win situation for Iran and international companies. Nevertheless, we should not forget about political aspects.”

Earlier in September, Gasselsberger told Reuters that the agreement covered projects by Austrian companies in areas that were previously under sanctions.

“We have very concrete projects in the fields of infrastructure, rail, health, hospital construction, factory building, photovoltaics, hydro power,” he had stressed.

Export credit guarantees covering 99 percent of a project’s volume will be provided by the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank, the main Austrian body that issues them, Reuters added.

“The sticking point was obtaining an additional guarantee from the Iran,” Gasselsberger said. “We negotiated with the Iranian central bank but the guarantee is evidently coming from the Iranian Finance Ministry.”

President of the Organization for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran Mohammad Khazaei (C) at the signing ceremony of a finance deal worth €500 million with representatives (R) of Denmark’s Danske Bank in Vienna on September 21, 2017.

Deal with Denmark’s Danske

The other finance contract, very similar to the one with the Austrian bank, was also signed on Thursday, between the Iranian team and Denmark’s Danske Bank.

The deal is worth €500 million and sees 10 Iranian banks on the receiving end. Following the contract the Danish bank became the second European lender to ink such an agreement with Iran.

The Iranian signatories to the agreement were Saman Bank, Bank Mellat, Tejarat Bank, Bank Melli Iran, Bank of Industry and Mine, Bank Sepah, Bank Pasargad, Eqtesad Novin Bank, Keshavarzi Bank, and Parsian Bank.

They will act as the agent banks, providing civil projects in Iran with the Danish fund, according to an announcement by the website of the Central Bank of Iran.

Danske Bank, founded in 1871 and headquartered in Copenhagen, is the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region with over five million retail customers. It was number 454 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2011.

MoU on infrastructural projects

In addition, the Iranian delegation also signed an MoU late on Thursday with the EKF Bank of Denmark to finance infrastructural projects in Iran.

The memo will make it possible to finance Iranian projects in various sectors later.

The deals with Oberbank and Danske came on the heels of a similar move between China’s CITIC Group and a consortium of Iranian banks to provide loans worth a collective of $10 billion for the country’s infrastructure projects.

Iran had also in late August secured an €8-billion credit line from South Korea’s Eximbank — what was seen as the country’s biggest loan deal since the removal of sanctions against it in early 2016.

Accordingly, officials in Seoul said the deal would finance projects in Iran by companies from South Korea.

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“Parallel talks have started with other multinationals to undertake the megaproject,” said Karim Zobeidi, the head of a special department at NIOC that oversees the performance of reservoirs, ISNA reported.

Pointing to the $7.45 billion deal between the French energy major Total and the Copenhagen-based giant that was concluded last month, Zobeidi said, “Because Total has purchased Maersk’s oil and gas business, we should follow the talks more prudently.”

According to the official, the French giant is carrying out operations on Qatar’s oil layer in the joint oilfield with Iran in the Persian Gulf that is why NIOC ought to conduct negotiations with tact so as to not lose ground to the Arab state.

A POGC official has reported on the signing of a contract with a French firm for conducting pressure drop studies in South Pars joint gas field.

Maersk has already drilled more than 300 wells and extracted more than 1 billion barrels of oil for Qatar from the Qatari section of South Pars, which is known as the North Dome. According to reports, French energy major Total S.A. took over drilling and production operations in the North Dome from Maersk last year.

Highlighting the importance of collaboration with foreign firms to develop the second and third development phases of the field’s oil layer, the official noted that the layer’s complicated geological structure necessitates qualified companies to implement enhanced oil recovery techniques from the beginning of their operation.

“Pars Oil and Gas Company, as the contractor of South Pars oil layer, has held talks with a number of international companies, yet no agreement has been signed,” Zobeidi said, adding that Schlumberger Ltd, the world’s leading oilfield services provider, was also reportedly interested in drilling the South Pars oil layer, but it failed to reach agreement with NIOC.

According to Roham Qasemi, managing director of Petroiran Development Company, cumulative crude oil output from the field’s oil layer has surpassed 2.5 million barrels over roughly six months.

Iran began to extract crude oil from South Pars in March using FPSO Cyrus, a floating production storage and offloading vessel in March. The FPSO was reportedly built in Singapore and cost $300 million.

“Maersk’s operational capacity and know-how to drill horizontal oil wells as deep as 10,000 meters are key to its success in developing the South Pars oil layer, as we are still deprived of such expertise,” Qasemi said.

Underscoring the country’s domestic capacity to develop the project’s first phase, he added that Iranian experts drilled 39,000 meters of offshore well in addition to installing a 2,500-ton platform.

Asked about employing another FPSO in the second phase, Qasemi noted that Petroiran, POGC and the Danish conglomerate are holding technical talks about the issue.

Iran aims to stabilize production from the SP layer at 25,000 barrels per day and gradually boost output to 55,000-60,000 bpd.

NIOC plans to employ enhanced oil recovery methods to boost the extraction rate in fields by 35%. South Pars oil layer is located 130 kilometers off Iran’s coast in the Persian Gulf with an estimated 7 billion barrels of oil in place, but it is hard to put an accurate estimate on the volume unless more exploratory wells are drilled.

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Nouroddin Shahnazizadeh, the managing director of the Petroleum Development and Engineering Company of Iran, told the domestic media that the leading European bidders for the project include Total (France), Shell (UK/Hollande), Eni (Italy), Wintershall (Germany), Rosneft (Russia), OMV (Austria) and Maersk (Denmark).

Shahnazizadeh added that several Asian companies including CNPC and Sinopec (China), ONGC (India), Pertamina (Indonesia), Petronas (Malaysia) and PTTP (Thailand) would also participate in a tender over South Azadegan.

The official said officials from the bidding companies had visited Iran for three days to become fully aware about the conditions of the project. Almost a dozen of them, he added, had been even taken to visit the project site.

Nevertheless, Shahnazizadeh did not indicate when the tender over South Azadegan would be held.

Iran has repeatedly postponed the tender over the giant field which it jointly shares with Iraq.

Reuters quoted an unnamed Iranian official as saying in June that the bidding over the project had been delayed by another few months.

This, the unnamed official told Reuters, was meant to allow energy companies more time to study the field.

Iran discovered Azadegan oil field in 1999 in what was the country’s biggest oil find in decades. The country accordingly teamed up with Inpex to push the project toward development. However, the Japanese company later quit the project in what appeared to be the result of US sanctions against Iran.

The NIOC later divided the project into South Azadegan and North Azadegan and both were awarded to China’s CNPC when Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) was in office.

The media reported in 2014 that Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh had sidelined CNPC from South Azadegan due to its protracted delays in developing the field.

South Azadegan is believed to hold an in-place oil reserve of about 33.2 billion barrels and its recoverable resources estimated at about 5.2 billion barrels.

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Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development for International Affairs Asghar Fakhrieh Kashan was quoted by Press TV as saying that nine financial institutions from Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Britain, China and Japan had already approached Iran to fund the purchases.

He did not disclose the names of the interested financers.

Nevertheless, he underlined that arrangements to hold a tender to choose the financier for the purchases were underway, adding that tender documents would be sent out to potential bidders within a month.

Last week, he was quoted by THE media as saying that Britain’s key export credit agency — UK Export Finance (UKEF) — had informed Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development that it was ready to provide funding for all of Iran’s purchases from Boeing and Airbus.

He stressed that Iran wanted to have an open hand in choosing the best financiers and that a tender to this effect would be held soon.

“Iran Air is preparing the tender documents so that they would be sent to all credible financiers worldwide,” Fakhrieh Kashan told IRNA.

“We are in conditions that permit us to choose our desired financiers in a competitive atmosphere that a tender creates.”

Also, Iran’s media last October quoted an unidentified government official as saying that Boeing had sealed a deal with an American bank to provide financing for Iran’s purchase of airliners in cooperation with a Japanese bank.

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The festival’s awards ceremony took place late Thursday at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall.

According to fajriff.com, Iran’s Culture Minister Reza Salehi-Amiri, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Director of Iranian Cinema Organization Mohammad-Mehdi Heidarian, plus a large number of A-list Iranian and foreign film directors, producers, critics, journalists, academics, and stars attended the ceremony.

Addressing the participants, the secretary of the festival, Reza Mirkarimi said, “I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who worked round the clock to help me make this up-and-coming event possible. We are now more than ever determined to turn FIff into an annual event for those vying for global peace, justice and dignity both in their films and in their workings.”

Hosted by prominent actor Ashkan Khatibi, the ceremony was broadcast live in both English and Persian.

Full list of winners follows

International Competition (Cinema of Salvation)

Golden Simorgh for Best Film: ‘The Home’ by Asghar Yousefinejad, Iran

Silver Simorgh for Best Director: ‘Ivan D. Gaona, Guilty Men’, Colombia

Silver Simorgh for Best Actress: ‘Margita Gosheva, Glory’, Bulgaria

Silver Simorgh for Best Actor: ‘Stefan Denolyubov, Glory’, Bulgaria

Silver Simorgh for Best Script: ‘The Home’, Asghar Yousefinejad, Iran

Silver Simorgh for Special Jury Prize — Art Direction and Cinematography: Zhu Jinjing (Cinematography), ‘Wang Tou (Art Director), ‘Mr. No Problem’, (China, France)

Silver Simorgh for Best Short Film: ‘Online Shopping’ by Qasideh Golmakani, Iran

Members of the panel of jury in this section were: Florian Gallenberger (Germany), Jessica Woodworth (USA), Lech Majewski (Poland), Mieko Harada (Japan), Uberto Pasolini (Italy), Fatemah Motamed-Aria‎‎ (Iran), and Rasoul Sadrameli (Iran).

Muhammad al-Ameen Award

‘Babaei’, Mozaffar Hosseinkhani Hezaveh, Iran

Asian Film Awards

Best Asian Film: ‘Returnee’ by Sabit Kurmanbekov, Kazakhstan

Best Asian Director: Shahrbanoo Sadat, ‘Wolf and Sheep’, Afghanistan/Denmark/France/Sweden

Best Asian Short Film: ‘Not Yet’ by Arian Vazirdaftari, Iran

Members of the panel of jury in this section were: Hamida Omarova (Azerbaijan), Omirbaev Darezhan Karazhanovich (Kazakhstan), Zeki Demirkubuz (Turkey), Nejib Ayed (Tunisia), and Kamal Tabrizi (Iran).

Interfaith Award

‘Knife in the Clear Water’ by Wang Xuebo, China

Jury members are Michał Legan (Poland), Katia Malatesta (Italy) and Hojatollah Ayoubi (Iran).

NETPAC Prize

‘The Home’ by Asghar Yousefinejad, Iran

The members of the jury in this section were: Anne Demy-Geroe (Australia), Rolando B. Tolentino (Philipines) and Houshang Golmakani (Iran).

Presided over by Reza Mirkarimi, the 35th edition of FIff took place from April 21 to 28 in Tehran.

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Bijan Zangaeh, while pointing to continuation of talks with Maersk Group, voiced optimism that final agreements will be reached in near future.

“What’s more, Pars Oil and Gas Company Ltd. has been chosen as the contractor of the project,” he continued.

In the same line, Deputy Head of NIOC for Development and Engineering Affairs Gholamreza Manouchehri recounted on results of negotiations asserting “for the moment, talks will continue with Denmark’s Maersk until a contract is signed in near future.”

Manouchehri’s remarks come at a time when he has asked Petroiran Development Company to seek consultations from Maersk Group. Such an emphasis seems to be rooted in the fact that the Danish firm is in charge of developing South Pars Oil Layer project.

Complementing oil minister’s statements on the change in the project’s contractor, the NIOC official said “the primary contractor of the project was Pars Oil and Gas Company though the responsibility was later shifted to the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) before returning to the former again based on recent decisions.”

“SPOL was supposed to yield 35,000 oil barrels per day on a regular basis though the output figure currently stands at 25 thousand barrels and will hopefully reach the envisaged level by the end of current year,” stressed the official.

Until a year ago, Maersk Group was in charge of development and production in the Qatari side of South Pars Oil Layer and it had managed to recover one billion barrels. Nevertheless, Total’s proposal to Qatar over the layer led the Danish firm out of the oil-rich region and marked an end to its partnership with Qataris.

Afterwards, Maersk launched more serious talks with National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) though no final deal has been sealed yet. Several decades ago, the Danish business conglomerate held sessions with the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum though its proposals were rejected and Petroiran Development Company was put in charge of the developmental project.

Several marginal issues in the drilling project and failure of Schlumberger drilling program brought about a series of unwanted events until the first Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit was purchased.

Return of Maersk Group to Iran is reminiscent of the remarks made by International Petroleum Consultant and the then Director of Maersk for legal affairs and contract Pasha Ramazanpour who said “despite willingness of the Danish firm to develop the oil layer, the project has been assigned to a newly-formed Iranian company.”

A.P. Moller–Maersk Group, also known as Maersk, is a Danish business conglomerate. A.P. Møller – Maersk Group has activities in a variety of business sectors, primarily within the transport and energy sectors.

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The film chronicles the story of a family preparing for a wedding ceremony, but the situation gets complicated and tough as a result of some incidents, ISNA wrote.

The bitter social drama competed with movies from France, Denmark, Argentina, and Hong Kong to win a total of nine Crystal Simorgh awards at the 34th Fajr Film Festival.

It also won the best award at the 22nd Geneva International Film Festival Tous Ecrans and the prestigious NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema) Award at Iranian Film Festival Australia.

The festival will be held on February 9-25 in Oregon, the US.

The event is a non-profit independent film festival that is held in several local theaters in Portland, Oregon. It was founded in 2013 by Joshua Leake and Jay Cornelius. The first film festival was held from August 27 through September 1, 2013 and featured networking events, workshops and food carts. 83 films were shown in the inaugural festival and over 600 were submitted for consideration at the festival. Highlights of the event included Andy Mingo’s short film ‘Romance’, which was based on a Chuck Palahniuk short story.

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Gholamali Kamyab said attracting $10 billion of foreign finance has been defined as a project for the CBI in the area of Resistance Economy, Tasnim News Agency reported.

He made the remarks in a meeting with CBI officials, which was attended by First Vice-President Es’haq Jahangiri in Tehran.

The measures taken by the CBI in this regard include extensive talks with some foreign banks, such as the Export–Import (Exim) Bank of China, Italy’s Mediobanca and Denmark’s Danske Bank, he noted.

The CBI vice governor added that up to now, 72 percent of the project has been implemented.

There has been a new wave of interest in ties with Iran since Tehran and the P5+1 group of countries – Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany – reached a deal on Iran’s nuclear program in 2015.

The comprehensive nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), terminated all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran.

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The thrilling Iranian long-range shooter had earlier become the top goalscorer of the European Champions League in 2016, with 68 goals in nine matches — three more than Magnus Bramming from Denmark’s Team Tvis Holstebro club, varzesh3.com reported.

Esteki, 26, who put in brilliant performances in the European tourney, is the first Iranian and Asian handball player to earn these two European honors.

The other nominees for the title were Nedim Remili (PSG), Bramming (TTH Holstebro), Andreas Wolff (THW Kiel), Dika Mem (Barcelona) and Nebojsa Simic (IFK Kristianstad).

Iran handball stars

Many iranian handball stars play in the other countries . Allahkaram and  Sajjad Estaki and Alireza Mousavi playing in Dinamo bucharest also Shaho Nosrati plays in Steaua bucharest in Romania. Mohsen Babasafri who is goal keeper and Sasan Mousakhani  played in Turkey. Amin Yousefnejad joined to Metalurg Macedonian handball club. Afshin Sadeghi plays in Swiss. Daniel komayeshnejad  play in Malemo club in Sweden and

Video

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Also Today Imam Khomeini Port is back to busy days.

The Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Imam Khomeini Port covers an area of 11,044 hectares, lying in the extreme northwest of the Persian Gulf and at the end of natural waterway of Khormusa, which is 42 nautical miles long, 250 meters wide and 20 meters deep in average, providing a safe environment for various types of shipping liners and oil tanker vessels through the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean.

The Imam Khomeini Port is the closest southern Iranian port to major industrial and population centers, and has the shortest and safest land routes for forwarding commodities from Iraq, Turkey, Caucasus and Eastern Europe.

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