Azernews.Az

Iran plans to increase South Pars gas field's output in order to use the produced gas domestically, Director of the National Iranian Gas Transmission Company Reza Almasi said on Sunday.

Iran's first priority is to extract gas from joint fields, IRNA news agency quoted Almasi as saying.

Iran has attached priority to boosting gas production capacity from its joint oilfields with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Mohammad Ali Abdollahzadeh, Member of Iran's Parliament (Majlis), said on Saturday that Iran is daily losing some $2.4 billion in its joint oil and gas fields.

Since Iran has not invested enough money in its joint oil and gas fields, the nation is now lagging behind neighbors in production, Mehr news agency quoted Abdollahzadeh as saying.

The NIOC director Ahmad Qalehbani earlier said that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) attaches the top priority to the development of joint oil and gas fields.

He referred to the key role of explorations in the oil sector, adding, development plans at border areas are of high importance, the Shana news agency reported.

According to national development plans, crude oil and natural gas output should reach 5.1 million barrels and 1.4 billion cubic meters per day by 2015, respectively, the ISNA news agency quoted Qalebani as saying.

Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has ordered all contractors of the South Pars gas field development projects to work round the clock in three shifts to complete development of all phases.

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 meters of gas, or about eight percent of the total world reserves.