Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 30 / Trend F.Milad/
Qatar extracts as much as three times natural gas more than Iran from the South Pars gas field. So investments should be directed toward developing the South Pars phases in order to compensate shortcomings, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company stated.
The gap between Iran and Qatar in exploitation from the giant joint South-Pars gas field is becoming larger day by day, the Khabaronline Persian language news website reported in October.
While Iran's daily revenue from gas condensate was about $30 million, the Qatari side is drawing one million barrel per day worth $120 million.
Qatar's development plans for the gas field will increase its development to 250 to 270 billion cubic metres per year which will deliver 77 million tons of gas condensates. Qatar has several long term contracts with Japan and Korea for delivering the commodity.
The total revenue of Qatar in the current year would reach $37 billion making the tiny country the LNG exporter number one worldwide; covering 28 per cent of global demand.
Oil minister Rostam Qasemi has ordered all the contractors of the South Pars gas field development projects to work round the clock in three shifts to complete development of all the phases.
Iran has attached a priority on boosting gas production capacity from its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Qasemi said, the IRNA news agency reported.
Iran sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia and is trying to grow its gas production by increasing foreign and domestic investments, especially in its South Pars gas field.
The South Pars gas field is shared by Iran and Qatar. The Iranian share, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic metres of gas, or about eight per cent of the total world reserves and more than 18 billion barrels of liquefied natural gas resources.
