IranMania News: Technical glitch halts production at Iran oilfields: “The fields were inaugurated in July, having been developed at a cost of $1.45 bln by Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell in partnership with Japan's JJI and Iran's Oil Industries Engineering Company.”: “But Vakil complained of what he said had been "Shell's inappropriate supervision of its subcontractors…” Thursday, October 13, 2005

LONDON, October 13 (IranMania) - Iran has been forced to halt output at two new offshore oilfields that should be producing 190,000 barrels per day because of technical problems, the Oil Ministry said.

The director of operations of Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC), Abbas Vakil, told the Ministry's Shana news service that the Soroush and Nowruz fields have been shut down for close to a week.

The fields were inaugurated in July, having been developed at a cost of $1.45 bln by Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell in partnership with Japan's JJI and Iran's Oil Industries Engineering Company.

When the fields opened, Iran said its total oil production had risen to 4.2 mln barrels per day.

But Vakil complained of what he said had been "Shell's inappropriate supervision of its subcontractors", saying the facilities had "low quality heat changers" and were "lacking storage capacity in the floating storage units", reports added.

But he said production at the Soroush field, set to output 100,000 bpd, should resume within days.

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