Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 9
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Emad Hosseini said that Iran is not going to let drastic fall in oil prices affect its expansion operations in South Pars oil and gas field, Mehr news agency reported on Feb. 9.
He pointed out that Iran has started to operationally tap phases 12, 15, 16, 17, and 18 of the field.
"Since the beginning of this year (Mar. 21, 2014) gas extract from this field has increased about 199 million cubic meters a day," he said.
"Despite a fall in oil prices, none of the expansion projects in South Pars phases has come to a halt. It is even estimated that next year the new phases will start producing gas," he asserted, adding that 5 more phases are to be operational soon.
The official further said that Iran is planning to boost its oil production by 700 thousand to 1 million barrels a day as oil fields to the West of the Karun River turn operational.
Iran says it will overtake Qatar in production of natural gas from South Pars, shared between the two countries, within the next three years. Iran's oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh has emphasized that the country will complete all the projects that have been defined in South Pars gas field before April 2018.
South Pars - called the North Dome by Qatar - is one of the world's largest gas reservoirs. It is believed to hold an estimated reserve of 51 trillion cubic meters of in-situ natural gas and some 50 billion barrels of condensates.
The Iranian section of the huge field has been defined into 29 projects or phases. About half of the phases have already been completed and operations to bring the rest on stream are currently underway.
Edited by CN
