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By Nigar Abbasova

The Islamic Republic of Iran has inaugurated a new platform at the Phase 21 of South Pars gas field, the world's largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar. The new platform will add some 28 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of gas to the production.

Alireza Ebadi, the managing director of South Pars phases 20 and 21said that the field increased its production capacity up to 515 mcm/d. During the last fiscal year, the nominal production capacity of South Pars stood at 430 mcm/d. The country plans to launch the platform of Phase 20 with 28 mcm/d of output capacity in the coming weeks.

The development of Phases 20 and 21 is pursued with the several aims including supply of 50 million cubic meters of refined gas for domestic use, recycling one million tons of ethane gas, which will be consumed by the petrochemical industry, the annual utilization of 1.05 million tons of high-quality liquefied gas for export, daily production of 75,000 barrels of sulfur de-stabilized gas condensate for export, as well as recycling of 400 tons of sulfur per day for export purposes.

French oil major Total earlier signed a preliminary agreement to help develop the massive field (South Pars Phase 11 (SP11)), becoming the first Western energy investment in Iran since international sanctions were lifted earlier this year. The company was also involved in the development of Phases 2 and 3 of the project in 2000.

Iran plans to increase the gas production level at South Pars to 530 mcm/d by March 2017, while total gas output of the country is planned to reach about 830 mcm/d. South Pars, divided into 29 development phases, holds 40 tcm of natural gas, or 21 percent of world’s total gas reserves, and 50 billion barrels of condensate.

South Pars covers an area of nearly 9,700 square kilometers, with 3,700 square kilometers falling to a share of Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf. The remaining 6,000 square kilometers are situated in Qatar’s territorial waters.

In July 2015, Iran and global powers reached what has been described as a nuke deal, where Iran agreed it would scale down its nuclear program, in return for the crippling economic sanctions being eased and eventually lifted against the oil and gas rich Islamic Republic.

After lifting the sanctions, Iran get new possibilities and access to foreign resources which were inaccessible due to the sanctions.

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