Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has said the top priority of his ministry is completing several phases of South Pars oil and gas field and boosting Iran's daily oil output.

In a televised interview with the IRIB network, Zanganeh said that accelerating natural gas production in Phases 12, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 at the joint Iran-Qatar South Pars complex is a top priority of the Iranian Oil Ministry since their total production adds up to nearly 170 million cubic meters per day.

South Pars is part of a wider gas field that is shared with Qatar. The larger field covers an area of 9,700 square kilometers, 3,700 square kilometers of which are in Iran's territorial waters (referred to as South Pars) in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers, referred to as the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.

Zanganeh also stated that the gas from those phases would entirely compensate the country's energy shortages.

Besides, Zanganeh said that Phases 15 and 16 of the massive offshore South Pars gas field may begin in the second half of the next Iranian calendar year, which begins on March 21, 2014.

The Iranian oil minister added that upon the commissioning of the aforementioned phases, 300,000 barrels of gas condensates, 2 million tons of liquefied gas (LPG) and 2 million tons of ethane will be added to Iran's daily production.

According to Zanganeh, the Oil Ministry also plans to increase Iran's daily oil production in a span of seven months, and will have to be able to boost the country's export capacity.

He also said Iran is ready to provide preferences on service contracts on hydrocarbon development for the companies operating in the oil and gas sector.

Iran plans to make some structural changes in oil contracts, involving also the introduction of some preferences, he noted.

According to Zanganeh, the privilege will be applied to the oil and gas projects being implemented, in particular in the Caspian Sea, as well as to the development project of the South Pars gas field.

Meanwhile, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a five-billion-dollar buy-back deal with Petropars Ltd. (PPL) for the development of Phase 11 of the South Pars gas field.

The Iranian company PPL is replacing China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) whose contract was terminated.

PPL project manager Hadi Mirbaqeri said the company has already proven its qualifications in the development of Phases 12 and 19 of South Pars.

He added that the new contract involves construction and installation of two wellhead platforms, drilling 12 wells in each of the platforms, and construction of single buoy mooring (SBM) facilities for natural gas liquids exports.

Phase 11 of South Pars is being developed to produce 2 billion cubic feet a day of sour gas and 80,000 barrels a day of gas condensate.

CNPC agreed with NIOC in 2009 to develop the only South Pars phase whose fate had not been decided.

Iran commissioned the development of Phase 11 to CNPC after France's Total and Malaysia's Petronas pulled out.

Iran is currently producing 300 million cubic meters (mcm) per day of gas from South Pars.

Over the past three years, about $46 billion has been invested in the South Pars gas field.

Iran, which sits on the world's second largest natural gas reserves after Russia, is making efforts to attract more foreign and domestic investment, especially in South Pars, in order to boost gas production.

The South Pars field, which is divided into 29 phases, has about 14 trillion cubic meters of gas, or about eight percent of total world reserves.