A building owned by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in Rotterdam has been seized after being sold nearly two years ago to a Dutch firm to partially settle a $2.6 billion debt owed to the UAE-based Crescent Gas Corporation (CGC).
Tehran-based Shargh newspaper reported that the building’s confiscation followed a Dutch court’s rejection of NIOC's request to annul the auction of its Rotterdam property, ruling in favor of the buyer, Dutch real estate company Heuvel Vastgoed B.V. The building, seized due to an arbitration ruling, had been sold on April 20, 2023.
Shargh's report said that NIOC had argued that the building, as a government-owned asset, should be immune from seizure. Heuvel, however, countered that the property was acquired legally through a public auction.
Ultimately, the court dismissed all of NIOC's appeals, including the request to reclaim the building, the report said.
NIOC's $2.6 billion debt to CGC stems from disputes over a 25-year gas supply agreement signed in 2001.
In April 2001, NIOC entered into a contract with UAE based Crescent Petroleum Company International Limited (CPCIL). However, in 2003, CPCIL assigned its rights and obligations under to its wholly-owned subsidiary, CGC.
The agreement required NIOC to deliver 600 million cubic feet of gas per day via pipeline.
The contract, finalized during the second term of Iran's president Mohammad Khatami, faced challenges after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, elected in 2005, questioned the agreed price of $18 per 1,000 cubic meters, amounting to $98.5 million annually. As a result, the gas supply never commenced as planned.
This led to CGC to file a case against NIOC in 2009 with the international court of arbitration, and in 2010 the NIOC cancelled the contract. Iran then ignored a 2013 arbitration court ruling in The Hague that found the Iranian side liable. An international tribunal ruled in 2014 that the NIOC was in breach of its obligation to deliver gas since December 2005.
In September 2021, a tribunal ruled that NIOC must pay CGC approximately $2.43 billion in damages, plus interest. This award comprised $1.3 billion for CGC's lost profits and $1.1 billion for CGC's liability to its subsidiary, Crescent National Gas Corporation Limited (CNGC), for its lost profits.
The seizure of the Rotterdam building is not the first time Iranian assets have been confiscated over CGC-related debts. In April 2024, a British court ordered the confiscation of a £100 million ($125 million) property in central London owned by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Known as NIOC House, the building was located near the British Parliament and Westminster Abbey and had been in Iranian ownership for nearly 50 years.