State-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) plans to replace Polish Oil & Gas Company with a domestic consortium at the offshore Lavan gas field in the Gulf.

NIOC will sign a $2bn contract with an unnamed domestic group in 2012, according to state-run Mehr News agency.

The Polish firm signed an initial deal with NIOC in mid-2009 for the development of the field which contains an estimated 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. The pair aimed to produce 30 million cubic feet a day (cf/d), but the development had not progressed beyond talks.

In June, Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC), a subsidiary of NIOC held talks with the local Sepehr Energy Corporation to take over the field, as well as develop a downstream petrochemicals complex that would be fed with gas from Lavan.

Polish Oil & Gas could not be reached for comment.

Iran has sought to replace several European oil firms with Chinese, Asian or domestic oil companies due to the lack of progress. In September, Tehran sought compensation from Norway’s Statoil, which withdrew from the Khorramabad oil block in the west of Iran (MEED 20:9:11).

In 2010, Iran replaced UK-Dutch oil major Shell Group and Spain’s Repsol on the giant South Pars gas development, after they delayed a commitment for more than eight years, replacing this with the local Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Group.