Dubai, Feb 3: An Indian company has discovered a gas field with huge reserves of around 11 trillion cubic feet in the Gulf, off the coast of Iran, Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari announced in Tehran.

He said Iran was willing to jointly develop the field with India but discounted chances sharing it with a third country. ''A gas field with an estimated reserve of 11 trillion cubic feet (311 billion cubic metres) was found by an Indian company in the Persian Gulf,'' the Fars News agency quoted him as saying.

Mr Nozari declined to reveal the name of the company but said ''there will be talks with the discovering company for [the field's] development if they are interested,'' he said.

''Farsi gas field is located between North Pars gas field and Golshan and Ferdos gas fields in the Persian Gulf with an estimated preliminary reserve of 11 trillion cubic feet of gas,'' he said.

If India was interested in developing the Farsi gas filed, Iran would begin negotiations with that country, the minister said, adding the possibility of sharing Farsi gas field with other countries was very weak.

Mr Nozari also said the oil ministers of India and Pakistan would visit Tehran later this month to discuss a multibillion-dollar project to transport Iranian gas to India via Pakistan.

''We have invited the Indian oil minister with the Pakistan's official...and they have accepted it,'' he said.

''We are making efforts to make it a tripartite deal or it will become a bilateral one.'' Nozari noted that talks were due to be held on February 14-16.

Iran has the world's second-largest proven gas reserves after Russia and it has ambitions to export gas to a host of countries including Armenia, Pakistan and Syria.


UNI