Iran warned foreign oil and gas firms on Sunday that it will implement major projects with domestic companies alone if they do not speed up the completion of negotiations.

Muhammad Makkawi, the project director of Dana’s affiliate Crescent Petroleum, said that in the coming months some 600 million cfd of Iranian natural gas would start to be delivered to end users in the UAE early next year.

The Middle East has acquired immense strategic value as one of the determining fulcrums in the global balance of power due to its being the world’s largest known storehouse of low-cost energy supplies.