15/06/2010 Iran on Tuesday signed contracts worth 21 billion dollars with local firms to develop six gas fields, some of them awarded to the elite Revolutionary Guards, state media reported.
The state television website said the "contracts to develop the South Pars gas fields -- phases 13, 14, 19, 22, 23 and 24 -- were inked with three consortia including Khatam al-Anbiya," the Guards' industrial conglomerate.
The other deals were awarded to groups led by Iran's Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) and Petropars, the report said.
 
Iran previously discussed handing over phases 13 and 14 to Royal Dutch-Shell and Spain's Repsol YPF, but the two giants held off on a final decision as new UN sanctions loomed against Tehran.
 
"This is a very great day for the Iranian oil industry. These fields will be developed through Iranian investments," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live on state television after the oil ministry signed the deals.
"The (investment) volume of the contracts for the six phases signed today is worth around 21 billion dollars," he said, adding the total gas production when these fields become operational would be 200 million cubic meters per day.
 
Last month the Guards said it was ready to take over energy projects in Iran if Western firms stayed away as over the past few years its presence in the country's economy has grown under the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 
On Wednesday, the UN Security Council imposed the fourth set of sanctions on Iran for its uranium enrichment program, but the Islamic Republic played down the efficiency of such sanctions.