Official: Iran Plans to Start Oil Production in South Pars Field Soon

The accomplishment of the construction of "the oil platform and the start of drilling will take place in the first three months of the next (Iranian) year and if FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) vessels are supplied (in time), oil production from the South Pars will start in the first half of the next year," member of the Petro-Iran Company's board of directors Nasrollah Zarei said.

"94% of the oil platform has been built and once drilling is finished and the drilling rig is separated from the jacket, the platform will be transferred to the production site," he said, adding that the company will be ready to transfer the platform to the production site in May.

Last year, Managing Director of the Pars Oil and Gas Company (POGC) Mousa Souri said the company will start drilling in the oil layer of the South Pars Oil and Gas Field soon.

Souri said that the company has gained permissions to buy or lease a floating storage vessel and that his company had started negotiations to this end.

According to Souri, the POGC dispatched the first drilling rig to the shared part of the layer in May and a second one in June, 2012.

Souri noted that drilling of 7,000 meters in layer A2 completed in May and drilling another 7 thousand meters started in June.

"If floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit starts operations on schedule, oil production from the layer will come on line at the end of the current (Iranian) year (ending on March 20, 2013) or early next (Iranian) year," he said.

"Development of the layer needs $800mln of investment," Souri said.

Souri concluded that initial production from the South Pars oil layer is estimated at 35,000 barrels per day.

The South Pars Oil and Gas field is located in the Persian Gulf, North of Iran's maritime border with Qatar. The South Pars gas field 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, i.e. the North Dome, are in Qatar's territorial waters.

The South Pars gas field holds 8 percent of total gas reserves of the world and half of the country's proven gas reserves as well as is the host of the most important industrial complexes of the country and the most important part of oil industry's value chain.
isnna/281