Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Iran plans to start oil production from South Pars, which is the world's largest gas field, shared between Iran and Qatar, within the next couple of years.

Rokneddin Javadi, the head of National Iranian Oil Company said on March 4 that the country has already taken steps to purchase a floating production, storage and offloading unit and is awaiting its arrival in the Persian Gulf to start drilling for oil in the South Pars field, IRNA news agency reported.

Javadi said the vessel will be stationed within the next 14 months to lay the groundwork for oil production six months later.

The South Pars oil project could pump an additional 35,000 barrels of crude a day for the country, according to Iranian officials.

Khodadad Rahimi, the head of Customs Department of Pars Special Economic and Energy Zone earlier said the export of petrochemical products and gas condensates from Iran’s South Pars region has experienced a 20-percentage point rise, despite poor-performing oil.

Rahimi said the South Pars products were exported to around 30 countries including China, Japan, Iraq, Turkey, Russia and some African states.

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

Reports said Qatar is already harvesting a daily volume of over 600,000 barrels of oil from the region.

The gas field is estimated to contain a significant amount of natural gas, accounting for about eight percent of the world’s reserves, and approximately 19 billion barrels of condensate. South Pars holds 40 percent of Iran’s gas reserves.

Javadi has recently said the main phase of the giant offshore South Pars gas field is ready to come on-stream.

He added that the onshore and offshore sections of Phase 12 are 100 percent completed.

Phase 12 development of South Pars is supplying more than 50 mcm/d of gas. Inauguration of this phase will allow the extraction of 3 bcf/d of sour and sweet gas.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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