Iran to sign new gas export deals
Iran plans to sign new gas export contracts in the near future,
the Iranian oil minister has said, Trend news agency reported.
The country will start the construction of the Iran-Pakistan gas
pipeline in 30 days, Mehr news agency quoted Rostam Qasemi as
saying.
Iran also plans to commence construction of the Iran-Iraq gas
pipeline, he added.
Qasemi went on to note that Iran has put a ban on the exports of some oil products. The Iranian minister put the country's oil production capacity at four million barrels per day on December 2, ISNA news agency reported.
By the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2016), Iran's oil production capacity would have reached 5.6 million barrels per day, Qasemi said.
"By the end of the plan, the country will also produce one billion cubic meters of gas," he added.
Qasemi said in November that 775 million cubic meters (mcm) of
gas per day could be extracted from the South Pars field after all
its phases come on stream.
Iran is currently producing 300 mcm of gas per day from South Pars.
The country which sits on the world's second largest natural gas
reserves after Russia, has been trying to enhance its gas
production by increasing foreign and domestic investments,
especially in its South Pars gas field.
South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar.
The field covers an area of 9700 square kilometres, 3,700 square
kilometres of which are in Iran's territorial waters in the Persian
Gulf. The remaining 6000 square kilometres, referred to as the
North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.
The Iranian gas field contains 14 trillion cubic meters of natural
gas, about eight per cent of the world's reserves.