Lukoil OAO vice president Leonid Fedun said the joint development of the Anaran oil block in western Iran with Norsk Hydro ASA has been suspended because of US sanctions against foreign investment in the Iranian energy sector, Interfax reported.
The field holds estimated reserves totaling 2.0 billion barrels of oil.
According to Norsk Hydro's website, the Norwegian energy and aluminium group held 100 percent of the field, near the border with Iraq, until 2003, when Lukoil acquired a 25 percent stake in the field.
"We opened the largest field in Iran, but we can't work there because the US State Department has banned third countries from investing more than US $20 million [in projects in Iran]," he said at a conference in Moscow.
Fedun said the Iranian government has proposed a number of other projects to both his company and rival OAO Gazprom, but the sanctions prevented them from considering them.
The executive also expressed concern the US could place similar sanctions on Venezuela, preventing the company from developing the Junin-3 hydrocarbon block.
Fedun said Lukoil has acquired three exploration blocks in the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa, which are believed to contain sizeable reserves.
He did not say how much Lukoil paid for the exploration rights, saying only the price was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Lukoil has also cancelled earlier plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange, Fedun said. "We've dropped those plans," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency)