Iran will invest US$16 billion to develop the offshore South Pars gas complex over the next 10 months, a natural gas company director said. Pars Oil and Gas Co. Managing Director Mohammadreza Zahiri said that most of the funding will come from domestic sources, though Iran aims to attract more foreign and domestic development at South Pars and other fields to boost its own gas production.
The South Pars field is divided into 29 phases, and contains approximately 14 tcm of gas, or about 8% of total world reserves.
“According to the plans, the country’s gas production capacity will rise by 100 MMcm/d by the end of the year, a large part of which will be produced in South Pars phases 12, 15, and 16,” said National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Managing Director, Ahmad Qalebani.
Last year, Managing Director of Petro Iran Co., Saeed Hafezi said that the Marine-1 drilling rig had entered South Pars Gas Field area to start drilling in the oil layer of the field.
The rig will drill 12 wells in Phase 20 of the South Pars gas field after completing its operations in the oil layer. These wells will be drilled with the aim of production of at 35,000 bo/d, an NIOC official said.
The largest and final jacket of the field, phase 19, was set up in its specific place in depth of 72-m in the Persian Gulf. Phase 19 operator, Hamid Reza Masoudi, said the phase includes four main and satellite platforms and aims to produce 56,500 m3/d of gas.
In order to speed up development of the field’s phases, foreign exchange investments in South Pars gas field could reach $30 billion, Qalebani said. The country is making efforts to attract more foreign and domestic investments, especially in South Pars, in pursuance of boosting gas production.
The South Pars/North Dome is the world’s largest gas field and is shared by Iran and Qatar. The field’s recoverable gas reserves are estimated 215 billion bbls of oil. It holds about 16 bbls of recoverable condensate.
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